"Actor: Chieko Matsubara"

• Black Tight Killers | Blu Ray | (24/03/2025) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  After wooing stewardess Yoriko (Chieko Matsubara, Tokyo Drifter), war photographer Hondo (Akira Kobayashi, Battles Without Honor and Humanity) sees her kidnapped by a team of deadly female assassins who use vinyl records as weapons. Investigating her whereabouts, Hondo uncovers a conspiracy to steal a buried stash of WWII-era gold. Soon he must dodge go-go dancing ninjas and chewing-gum bullets to save Yoriko, whose family secret is tied to the hidden treasure. Every bit as stylish and inventive as the wildest works by his mentor Seijun Suzuki, Yasuharu Hasebe's spy spoof is a gaudy 1960s pop delight that ranks with the likes of Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise and Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik!

• Black Tight Killers (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (26/02/2024) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  After wooing stewardess Yoriko (Chieko Matsubara, Tokyo Drifter), war photographer Hondo (Akira Kobayashi, Battles Without Honor and Humanity) sees her kidnapped by a team of deadly female assassins who use vinyl records as weapons. Investigating her whereabouts, Hondo uncovers a conspiracy to steal a buried stash of WWII-era gold. Soon he must dodge go-go dancing ninjas and chewing-gum bullets to save Yoriko, whose family secret is tied to the hidden treasure. Every bit as stylish and inventive as the wildest works by his mentor Seijun Suzuki, Yasuharu Hasebe's spy spoof is a gaudy 1960s pop delight that ranks with the likes of Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise and Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik! Product Features High-Definition digital transfer Uncompressed mono PCM audio Audio commentary by Jasper Sharp Archival interview with director Yasuharu Hasebe Trailer Optional English subtitles Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Chris D. Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

• Cruel Gun Story | Blu Ray | (23/06/2025) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Togawa (Joe Shishido, Branded to Kill) is released from prison early by his underworld bosses. They make him execute a daring heist on an armoured vehicle, knowing he has no choice but to do it, as he needs the money for his sister's surgery. With multiple partners and facets to the operation, much is at risk and all is never as it seems. A riff on Stanley Kubrick's The Killing from Nikkatsu's ˜Action' line, Takumi Furukawa directs this yakuza tale with every bit of the deftness found in classic American noir of the 1950s, featuring hard-boiled characters and enough twists to make your fedora spin. SPECIAL FEATURES High-Definition digital transfer of Cruel Gun Story, presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the world Original uncompressed mono PCM audio Audio commentary by author and filmmaker Jasper Sharp (2024) New introduction by critic and programmer Tony Rayns (2024, 21 mins) Visual essay by Japanese cinema expert Hayley Scanlon on Nikkatsu's noir films of the 1960s (2024, 12 mins) Archival interview with actor Joe Shishido (2006, 9 mins) Optional English subtitles

• Outlaw: Gangster VIP Collection Dual Format DVD & Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (18/04/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  In 1968, acclaimed director Toshio Masuda (Rusty Knife, Tora! Tora! Tora!) and rising star Tetsuya Watari (Tokyo Drifter) teamed up for Outlaw: Gangster VIP, a gritty yakuza yarn based on the writings of real life ex-gangster Goro Fujita. The series offers up a depiction of the Japanese underworld that was unprecedented in its realism and its sympathetic portrayal of its protagonist as a man haunted by his past, unable to escape a life of crime. The success of the initial instalment spawned five sequels, continuing the story of the lone wolf Slasher Goro and his quest for redemption. The films presented a new kind of realism and violence that would prefigure Kinji Fukasaku's Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, with their winning combination of brutal violence, gang warfare and sweeping romance, these films make for a unique and unforgettable viewing experience. The set includes six films in the Outlaw series released for the first time in the west: Gangster VIP, Gangster VIP 2, Heartless, Goro the Assassin, Black Dagger, and Kill! Limited Edition Content: Limited Edition Box Set (3000 copies) containing all six films in the Outlaw series, available with English subtitles for the first time on any home video format High Definition digital transfers of all six films, from original film elements by Nikkatsu Corporation High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations Original uncompressed mono audio Newly translated English subtitles Audio commentary on Outlaw: Gangster VIP by Jasper Sharp Visual essay covering the entire series by Kevin Gilvear Original trailers for all six films Extensive promotional image galleries for all six films Exclusive gatefold packaging featuring brand new artwork by Tonci Zonjic Booklet featuring an interview with director Toshio Masuda by Mark Schilling, plus new writing by Schilling, Chris D and Kevin Gilvear

• Dolls | DVD | (24/11/2003) from £9.32   |  Saving you £10.67 (114.48%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dolls is a film of extraordinary beauty and tenderness from a filmmaker chiefly associated with grave mayhem and deadpan humor. That is to say, this is not one more Takeshi Kitano movie focused on stoical cops or gangsters. The title refers most directly, but not exclusively, to the theatrical tradition of Bunraku, enacted by half-life-size dolls and their visible but shrouded onstage manipulators. Such a performance--a drama of doomed lovers--occupies the first five minutes of the film, striking a keynote that resonates as flesh-and-blood characters take up the action. The film-proper is dominated by the all-but-wordless odyssey of a susceptible yuppie and the jilted fiancée driven mad by his desertion to marry the boss's daughter. Bound by a blood-red cord, they move hypnotically through a landscape variously urban and natural, stylized only by the breathtaking purity of light, angle, color, and formal movement imposed by Kitano's compositional eye and rigorous, fragmentary editing. Along the way we also pick up the story of an elderly gangster, haunted by memories of the lover he deserted three decades earlier and generations of "brothers" for whose deaths he was, in the accepted order of things, responsible. Another strand is added to the imagistic weave via a doll-like pop singer and a groupie blinded by devotion to her. This is a film in which character, morality, metaphysics, and destiny are all expressed through visual rhyme and startling adjustments of perspective. It sounds abstract--and it is--but it's also heartbreaking and thrilling to behold. Kitano isn't in it, but as an artist he's all over it. His finest film, and for all its exoticism, his most accessible. --Richard T. Jameson

• The Flowers And the Angry Waves | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £19.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (1.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In early 20-century industrial Japan Yakuza member Kikuju flees to Tokyo with his master's proposed bride leaving more than a few corpses in his wake. Settling down to work with some corrupt building contractors Kikuju is unaware that an assassin from his old gang is in town looking for him... Seijun Suzuki's blistering run of off-the-wall subverted genre movies continued with this scathing look at the stand-off between Japanese big business and no less corrupt trade unions while throwing in some stunning cinematography characteristic camera moves and of course a tattoed bandit geisha femme fatale!

• Tokyo Drifter | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Tokyo Drifter director Seijun Suzuki transforms the yakuza genre into a pop-art James Bond cartoon as directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The near-incomprehensible plot is negligible: hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari), a cool killer in dark shades who whistles his own theme song, discovers his own mob has betrayed his code of ethics and hits the road like a questing warrior, with not one but two mobs hot on his trail. In a world of shifting loyalties Tetsu is the last honourable man, a character who might have stepped out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film and into the delirious, colour-soaked landscape of this Vincent Minnelli musical-turned-gangster war zone. The twisting narrative takes Tetsu from deliriously gaudy nightclubs, where killers hide behind every pillar, to the beautiful snowy plains of northern Japan and back again, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Suzuki opens the widescreen production in stark, high-contrast black and white with isolated eruptions of colour which finally explode in a screen glowing with oversaturated hues, like a comic book come to life. His extreme stylisation, jarring narrative leaps and wild plot devices combine to create pulp fiction on acid, equal parts gangster parody and post-modern deconstruction. Mere description cannot capture the visceral effect of Suzuki's surreal cinematic fireworks. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com