Search

Description

Disc 2 contains Battle Royale (2000) in its original theatrical cut (114 min). In a near-future Japan, a class of ninth-graders is kidnapped by the government and taken to a deserted island, where the Battle Royale law forces them to kill one another until only one remains — each student issued a bag of supplies and a random weapon, and fitted with a collar that explodes if they refuse to play. Kinji Fukasaku's notorious adaptation of Koushun Takami's novel; this disc carries the original theatrical cut.

Description

Disc 3 contains Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003), the sequel. Years after surviving the first Battle Royale, Shuya Nanahara has become the leader of an anti-government resistance — so the authorities capture another class of students and send them in military gear to assault his island stronghold, collars linked in pairs so that one student's death kills their partner. Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003), begun by Kinji Fukasaku and completed by his son Kenta after the elder Fukasaku's death.

Description

Disc 2 contains Karate Bearfighter (1975), with a brand new audio commentary by Mike Leeder & Arne Venema and the original theatrical trailer. Ōyama is expelled from the karate community for refusing to pull his punches. With nowhere else to turn, he takes a job with the yakuza after running into Kimura (Hideo Murota), whom he knew as a fellow member of the Imperial Japanese Air Service before Kimura turned to a life of crime. Ultimately, though, Ōyama has no more respect for his superiors on the streets than he did in the dojo.

Description

Disc 1 contains Karate Bullfighter (1975), with a brand new audio commentary by Mike Leeder & Arne Venema, the video essay "In Search of the Ultimate Truth" by Jonathan Clements, the alternate "Champion of Death" opening credits, the original theatrical trailer and a "Champion of Death" TV spot. A karate tournament is crashed by an enigmatic martial artist calling himself Ōyama (Chiba), who arrives in tattered rags and beats all who dare challenge him. But Ōyama's entrance into the world of karate has unforeseen consequences, and soon he is fighting for far more than sporting victory.

Description

Osaka, 1907. The upstart Hoshino gang tries to assassinate the boss of the Kiyatatsu syndicate, who are in charge of the construction business. The attempt fails but sets in motion a spiral of violence, as the Hoshino sabotage building sites and kill a junior Kiyatatsu member. When the old boss dies of his wounds, senior lieutenant Kikuchi decides to take on the Hoshino gang alone. Tai Kato's first yakuza film is a timeless tale of honour and vengeance, co-written by Red Peony Gambler creator Norifumi Suzuki.

Description

Disc 2 contains The Fort of Death and Eight Men to Kill. Before Lone Wolf and Cub made him famous, Tomisaburô Wakayama starred as Shikoro Ichibei, a doctor and spy-for-hire, in three violent samurai spectacles that borrow from James Bond and the spaghetti western: in Killer's Mission, Ichibei is hired to prevent the sale of firearms to a hostile lord; in The Fort of Death, he is hired on a Seven Samurai-style mission to protect a village of farmers from a ruthless lord; and in Eight Men to Kill, he is hired to recover a cache of stolen gold from a government mine, aided by fellow spies, ronin and female ninjas.

Description

Disc 1 contains Killer's Mission. Before Lone Wolf and Cub made him famous, Tomisaburô Wakayama starred as Shikoro Ichibei, a doctor and spy-for-hire, in three violent samurai spectacles that borrow from James Bond and the spaghetti western: in Killer's Mission, Ichibei is hired to prevent the sale of firearms to a hostile lord; in The Fort of Death, he is hired on a Seven Samurai-style mission to protect a village of farmers from a ruthless lord; and in Eight Men to Kill, he is hired to recover a cache of stolen gold from a government mine, aided by fellow spies, ronin and female ninjas.

Description

A former soldier caught working the black market is sent to prison while his partner escapes and becomes a gangster - but their paths cross again as they both fall in love with the same woman.

Description

Disc 3 contains 11 Samurai, presented in high definition (1080p) with original lossless Japanese mono audio and newly translated English subtitles, plus a brand new audio commentary by film critic David West, Fighting the Poison, a video essay by film critic and Japanese cinema expert Jonathan Clements on the film's historical setting and context, Samurai Guerilla Part 3, an archival interview with Misao Arai and Dirty Kudo, and Eiichi Kudo: The Art of Realism, an archival interview with Fabrice Arduini. Discs 1 (13 Assassins) and 2 (The Great Killing) of the set are listed separately. The lord of the Oshi fief is murdered by his hunting neighbour Nariatsu, the cruel and despotic son of the former Shogun. When the Oshi clan is blamed for the incident and sentenced to be disbanded, eleven of its finest samurai reject the verdict and swear to trade their lives for justice by assassinating Nariatsu.

Description

Disc 1 contains 13 Assassins, presented in high definition (1080p) with original lossless Japanese mono audio and newly translated English subtitles, plus a brand new audio commentary by film critic and Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes, The Samurai Variations, a video essay by music supervisor and Japanese cinema expert James Balmont on Akira Ifukube's score for the film, Samurai Guerilla Part 1, an archival interview with Misao Arai and Dirty Kudo on Eiichi Kudo and Toei's role in the 1960s Japanese film landscape, and the theatrical trailers. Discs 2 (The Great Killing) and 3 (11 Samurai) of the set are listed separately. In 1844, the Shogun's half-brother Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira terrorises his domain with sadistic impunity, and the shogunate, desperate to stop his rise to higher office, secretly orders veteran samurai Shinzaemon Shimada to assassinate him. Shimada recruits twelve more swordsmen and converts a mountain village into an elaborate death trap for Naritsugu's vastly larger escort.

Description

Disc 2 contains The Great Killing, presented in high definition (1080p) with original lossless Japanese mono audio and newly translated English subtitles, plus a brand new audio commentary by film critic David West, Magician of Light and Shadow, a video essay by film critic and Japanese cinema expert Daisuke Miyao on the cinematography seen in the film, Samurai Guerilla Part 2, an archival interview with Misao Arai and Dirty Kudo, and Masaaki Ito Remembers Eiichi Kudo, a tribute by the director's former assistant and brother-in-law. Discs 1 (13 Assassins) and 3 (11 Samurai) of the set are listed separately. A Shogunate elder schemes to rule Japan by installing Tsunashige, the Shogun's brother and his own puppet, as the next Shogun. The strategist Yamaga assembles a cabal of swordsmen to stop him, but the plot is betrayed and most of the conspirators are captured and tortured, leaving a cynical surviving samurai to carry out the assassination almost single-handed.

Description

In the ruins of postwar Tokyo under the Allied Occupation, a group of prostitutes pool their earnings as a makeshift guild, saving to build a dancehall they call Paradise. Gangsters, black marketeers and would-be pimps all circle for a cut of their trade, and the discovery of an unexploded bomb inside the burned-out building where they work puts their fragile independence — and their dream — in still greater danger. Hideo Gosha retells Taijiro Tamura's oft-filmed story, best known from Seijun Suzuki's 1964 version.

Description

In snowy Fukui, loose-cannon yakuza Kawada rebels when his boss allies with a powerful Osaka syndicate. The syndicate's rivals recruit Kawada as their proxy, but his temper alienates them too, leaving him to face overwhelming forces largely alone. Kinji Fukasaku's final yakuza film, drawn from a real gang war, stars Hiroki Matsukata with Sonny Chiba.

Description

An early Kinji Fukasaku action drama from a script by Akira Kurosawa, set in 1947 in a snowy herring-fishing village on Hokkaido. Tetsu (Ken Takakura) returns from the war to work in his father Kyubei's fishing business, just as the one-eyed outlaw Jakoman (Tetsuro Tamba) arrives in the village nursing an old grudge against Kyubei and bent on stirring up trouble among the seasonal fishermen.

Description

Japan's fabled 'King of Cult' Teruo Ishii (Horrors of Malformed Men, Shogun's Joy of Torture) presents four dramatized accounts of real crimes of passion committed by women across different eras in this grotesque anthology, among them the Hotel Nihonkaku Murders, the tale of 'poison wife' Oden Takahashi — the last woman in Japan to be beheaded — the brutal killer Yoshio Kodaira, and the story of Sada Abe, the notorious castrator later depicted in Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. 88 Films proudly issues this unflinching survey of female pathology, drawn from Japan's criminal casebooks, for the first time outside Japan.

Description

Disc 1 contains Abashiri Prison (1965) and Another Abashiri Prison Story (1965), plus an audio commentary by Tom Mes on Abashiri Prison and original theatrical trailers. Japan's infamous Abashiri Prison, built in the late nineteenth century to house political prisoners, inspired a popular and prolific run of yakuza movies released between 1965 and 1972. This set presents the first three entries in that landmark series, directed by Teruo Ishii, the 'King of Cult,' and starring Japanese genre-cinema titan Ken Takakura. In Abashiri Prison, Takakura plays Shinichi Tachibana, a yakuza sent to the prison as punishment for attacking a rival gangster; across the sequels, Tachibana continues to battle brutal wardens, fellow inmates, and the criminal underworld, both inside the prison walls and beyond them.

Description

Disc 2 contains Abashiri Prison: Saga of Homesickness (1965), plus an audio commentary by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema, 'Break Out: Jasper Sharp and Mark Schilling Discuss Abashiri Prison', and an interview with Tony Rayns. Japan's infamous Abashiri Prison, built in the late nineteenth century to house political prisoners, inspired a popular and prolific run of yakuza movies released between 1965 and 1972. This set presents the first three entries in that landmark series, directed by Teruo Ishii, the 'King of Cult,' and starring Japanese genre-cinema titan Ken Takakura. In Abashiri Prison, Takakura plays Shinichi Tachibana, a yakuza sent to the prison as punishment for attacking a rival gangster; across the sequels, Tachibana continues to battle brutal wardens, fellow inmates, and the criminal underworld, both inside the prison walls and beyond them.

Description

On his adoptive father's deathbed, Texas-raised rancher Joji learns he has a twin brother and a sister he never knew. He travels to Japan to find his brother, only to learn he has been mysteriously killed; staying with his sister, Joji uncovers his uncle's criminal enterprises and his scheme to obtain a priceless 130-carat diamond, the Queen of Sheba, and fights to avenge his family.

Description

In Japan's Warring States period, Takamaru Momochi, heir to the Iga clan, sails home after ten years in hiding in China, determined to find Shiranui, the ruthless ninja who betrayed and murdered his father. But Shiranui and his thugs now control the country, so Takamaru gathers the scattered remnants of his clan and trains them in the shadowy art of ninjutsu, building a guerrilla resistance that can defeat the corrupt ninja and restore the Iga clan's honor.

Description

At St. Ai Girls' Academy, Takako Nonaka (Reiko Ike) rules the school: beautiful, wealthy, and freshly installed as boss of the Crimson Rose Society. But an international conspiracy destroys her charmed life, and the disgraced Takako is cast down among the academy's charity students. Burning for payback, she builds a new gang, the Raptors, and sets out to bloody everyone who ruined her — turning the school into a battlefield in an all-out war for gang supremacy.

Description

When word leaks out of Kibou Girls' Academy that a close ally has died, delinquent gang leader Noriko (Miki Sugimoto) walks into the hellish school looking for the truth. Inside she finds corrupt police, depraved teachers, and a sadistic student disciplinary committee that leaves trails of blood. Set on wiping them out, the 'Boss with the Cross' joins forces with righteous rivals and a wily journalist to get her revenge.

Description

Nami, known as the 'Red Cherry Blossom,' returns to her old Ginza haunts after serving a prison term for killing a yakuza boss, hoping to go straight — but the gambling, deception and violence of 1970s Tokyo's mean streets drag her back in.

Description

Agent Zero is a police officer who handles criminals her own way. After she brutally and unlawfully kills a rapist, she loses her badge and is sent to prison. When a wealthy politician's daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang soon afterward, Zero is released and sent undercover to locate the girl and bring her home safely.