"Actor: Renji Ishibashi"

• Watcher in the Attic (Blu ray + DVD) | Blu Ray | (16/12/2024) from £20.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A perverted loner roams the rafters of a boarding house in 1920s Tokyo in Watcher in the Attic, directed by one of the Nikkatsu˜s top Roman Porno filmmaking talents, Noboru Tanaka, peeping on the unusual sexual antics of its residents in this dreamlike tale of voyeurism, obsession and murder drawn from the erotic grotesque literature of Japan's foremost master of mystery and the macabre, Edogawa Rampo.

• WOLVES, PIGS AND MEN | Blu Ray | (26/08/2024) from £17.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Ferocious, dynamic yakuza thriller from Kinji Fukasaku Eureka Entertainment to release WOLVES, PIGS AND MEN; Kinji Fukasaku's blood-soaked yakuza masterpiece. Presented on Blu-ray from a new 2K restoration. The first print run of 2000 copies only will exclusively feature a limited edition O-card slipcase. A standout yakuza film directed by a master of the genre in Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honour and Humanity), Wolves, Pigs and Men is an uncompromising treatise on brutality and brotherhood starring Rentarô Mikuni (Harakiri), Kin'ya Kitaôji (Battles Without Honour and Humanity: Final Episode) and the inimitable Ken Takakura (Abashiri Prison). Kuroki (Mikuni), Jirô (Takakura) and Sabu (Kitaôji) are three brothers born into poverty. Kuroki, the eldest, finds an escape from his squalid beginnings by turning to organised crime - and soon both Jirô and Sabu have followed him into the yakuza lifestyle. But none of the brothers see eye to eye, each of them showing more loyalty to their criminal comrades than to their siblings. Following a stint in prison, Jirô convinces Sabu to help him pull off a potentially lucrative heist, leading to a series of betrayals and horrifically violent acts that will test the bonds of blood to their breaking point. Blending the staple themes of the Japanese gangster film with narrative and aesthetic qualities borrowed from the French New Wave and American film noir, Wolves, Pigs and Men stands as one of the finest yakuza movies of the 1960s. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK from a new restoration of the original film elements by Toei. 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a restoration of the original film elements supplied by Toei | Original Japanese audio track (uncompressed LPCM mono) | Audio commentary track by Jasper Sharp | Interview with screenwriter Jun'ya Satô | Interview with producer Tatsu Yoshida | Interview with Kinji Fukasaku's biographer, Sadao Yamane | Trailer | PLUS: A collector's booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Joe Hickinbottom

• Audition | DVD | (28/06/2004) from £13.79   |  Saving you £1.20 (8.70%)   |  RRP £14.99

  'Audition' is an eerie tale of a man (Ryo Ishibashi) who in his search for a new wife at the insistence of his son holds an audition for potential mates. He disguises his actual intentions by saying that the audition is for an actress to star in a new movie that he is making. When at last he finds the perfect woman (the model Eihi Shiina) she disappears leaving a bizarre trail of gruesome murders in her path... This collector's edition of 'Audition' features specially prepared

• Dead or Alive Trilogy | Blu Ray | (27/03/2017) from £24.69   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original uncompressed stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena

• Audition | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Much of the controversy surrounding Takashi Miike's Audition centres on the disturbing nature of the later part of the film--understandable when you consider the imprint these admittedly horrific images leave on the viewer--but fails to note the intricate social satire of the rest. This is a film that offers insight into the changing culture of Japan and the generation gap between young and old. Shigeharu Aoyama is looking for an obedient and virtuous woman to love and asks, "Where are all the good girls?"--a comment that seals his fate. A fake audition is organised to find Aoyama a wife. Asami Yamazaki is introduced as the virtuous woman he is looking for, dressing for the majority of the film in white and behaving with the courtesy of an angel, especially when juxtaposed against the brash stupidity of the other girls at the audition. Although his friend takes an immediate "chemical" dislike to her, Aoyama begins a love affair to end all love affairs. But as Asami's history unfolds we see her pain and torture and slowly understand that the tortured in this instance holds the power to become the torturer. Aoyama is slowly drawn away from his white, metallic and homely environment into the vivid- red and dirty-dark environment of Asami's sadistic world. Audition can be viewed on a number of levels, with important feminist, social and human rights issues to be drawn from the story. However, the real power of this film is its descent into the subconscious, to a point where reality is blurred and the audience is unable to decide whether the disturbing images on screen are real or surreal. This refined, hard-hitting and essentially Japanese style of horror is ultimately much more powerful than anything offered by Hollywood. This is a film that will get under your skin and infect your consciousness with a blend of fearless gore and unimaginable torture. It is not for the faint-hearted. --Nikki Disney

• Dead Or Alive | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £5.49   |  Saving you £9.50 (63.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The director of Dead or Alive, Takashi Miike, made his name on the international scene with Audition, a chilling psychological thriller that builds from a quiet start towards a prolonged torture sequence almost too unbearable to watch. But such deliberate pacing isn't typical of Miike, whose movies often assault the viewer with an onslaught of slam-bang action that makes John Woo look like Eric Rohmer. Dead or Alive, his most successful cops-vs-yakuza thriller to date, kicks off with six non-stop minutes of machine gun-paced violence, sex and slaughter, all set to a pounding heavy-metal beat. Thereafter things calm down a little, though not much. Given Miike's penchant for murky, livid-toned visuals and skewed camera angles, it's not always too easy to work out exactly who's doing what to whom, but the general outline's clear enough. The Tokyo underworld is being torn apart by a turf war between the yakuza gangs and the invading Chinese triads. Ambitious yakuza member Ryuichi isn't above playing both sides off against each other in his bid for power, while police detective Jojima, himself none too scrupulous in his methods, is out to destroy the gangs. Into this conventional plot framework Miike piles enough warped characters and bizarre, twisted happenings to fuel half-a-dozen Tarantino movies, while cheerfully borrowing--and inflating--key moments from such hard-boiled gangster-noirs as The Big Heat and Kiss Me Deadly. One character deep-fries his own hand, a stripper is drowned in a paddling-pool filled with her own excrement, and the literally apocalyptic finale, the showdown to end all showdowns, will leave you gasping. The appallingly prolific Miike, who regularly makes about five movies a year, has since directed two sequels--the first only three months after the original.--Philip Kemp

• Dead or Alive Trilogy | DVD | (27/03/2017) from £8.50   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by Kat Ellinger

• Death Note: L Change The World | DVD | (31/08/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The film takes place before and after the two Death Note films and shows Death Note fans the more human side of the legendary detective L not seen in previous entries. The story begins as L takes on the Kira case in which countless criminals are mysteriously dying of sudden heart attacks. L leaves his headquarters in Los Angeles and travels to Japan for he believes with a 97% certainty that the killer is in Japan and he also predicts that he may have to risk his life to solve the case. In Japan L teams up with another young genius named Light Yagami who is in fact Kira himself and discovers the existence of the Death Note a notebook belonging to a god of death; whoever s name is written in the notebook dies. L solves the case and brings justice back to the world but loses his partner Watari and only has 23 days left to live. In the short span of time he has left as L continues to solve unsolved cases from around the world he receives a gift left behind by Watari a young boy with an SD card. L discovers that this boy is the sole survivor of a mysterious epidemic that hit a small village in Thailand and suspects that this epidemic is not a natural occurrence but something man-made and evil. Around the same time L meets Maki a young girl looking for Watari for help. Her father a scientist at the Infectious Disease Center of Asia had given her the key to solving this case before he died. With Maki and the boy L goes up against a bio-terrorist group responsible for creating a deadly virus ten times more fatal than Ebola and as L tries to formulate an antidote with a scientist he must also save the lives of the two children who have no one else to turn to.

• Gozu | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £8.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (66.74%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Minami a member of the Azamawari crew highly respects his Aniki (brother) Ozaki who has saved his life in the past. However lately Ozaki's eccentricities have been making everyone wonder about his sanity... A typically skewed take on the Japanese Yakuza lifestyle from maverick director Takashi Miike.

• Audition | DVD | (31/07/2017) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Much of the controversy surrounding Takashi Miike's Audition centres on the disturbing nature of the later part of the film--understandable when you consider the imprint these admittedly horrific images leave on the viewer--but fails to note the intricate social satire of the rest. This is a film that offers insight into the changing culture of Japan and the generation gap between young and old. Shigeharu Aoyama is looking for an obedient and virtuous woman to love and asks, "Where are all the good girls?"--a comment that seals his fate. A fake audition is organised to find Aoyama a wife. Asami Yamazaki is introduced as the virtuous woman he is looking for, dressing for the majority of the film in white and behaving with the courtesy of an angel, especially when juxtaposed against the brash stupidity of the other girls at the audition. Although his friend takes an immediate "chemical" dislike to her, Aoyama begins a love affair to end all love affairs. But as Asami's history unfolds we see her pain and torture and slowly understand that the tortured in this instance holds the power to become the torturer. Aoyama is slowly drawn away from his white, metallic and homely environment into the vivid- red and dirty-dark environment of Asami's sadistic world. Audition can be viewed on a number of levels, with important feminist, social and human rights issues to be drawn from the story. However, the real power of this film is its descent into the subconscious, to a point where reality is blurred and the audience is unable to decide whether the disturbing images on screen are real or surreal. This refined, hard-hitting and essentially Japanese style of horror is ultimately much more powerful than anything offered by Hollywood. This is a film that will get under your skin and infect your consciousness with a blend of fearless gore and unimaginable torture. It is not for the faint-hearted. --Nikki Disney

• One Missed Call | DVD | (24/03/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  ring...ring...ring...... A chilling film in the style of The Ring and The Grudge. When a group of teens starts receiving a ""One Missed Call"" display on their cell phone screens they hear terrifying voice messages documenting their very own anguished death throes! Explore the darker deadlier side of the most personal convenient and reliable tool of your everyday existence - your cell phone!

• Audition | DVD | (28/01/2013) from £7.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (62.78%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When maverick director Mike Takashi unleashed this stylish slice of extreme cinema upon his unsuspecting audience few were ready for what they were about to see. Since then this twisted vision of a hell on earth has become a notorious critically acclaimed classic. Following his son's advice widower Shigeharu Aoyama decides that it's time to look for a new wife. By devising a plan to audition for the part of a female lead in a non-existent production he uses his professional position to track her down. Among the many applicants he is struck by the mysterious charms of Asami a quiet 24-year-old woman. It transpires that Asami is responsive to his attentions and Aoyama becomes convinced that she is the woman for him. But when he asks her to accompany him on a romantic holiday things take a dark and disturbing turn. Soon Aoyama will discover that there is a side to Asami that he could never have imagined even in his most depraved nightmares.

• One Missed Call | DVD | (31/03/2008) from £9.46   |  Saving you £4.79 (58.41%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Sequel to the original film by acclaimed director Takashi Miike (Ichi The Killer)! The One Missed Call curse has become an urban legend in Tokyo. Your cell phone rings with a chilling tone. Your violent demise is heard on the other end. Moments later you die a horrible death. However the curse has mutated to fool a wiser public and reach a broader audience. The curse indiscriminately infects anyone who answers and then works its way through every number in your phone book. To try to solve the mystery a couple of friends and a journalist trace the lineage of the curse to Taiwan. Once the origins are discovered it's a race against time to put an end to the horror.

• Agitator | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £7.05   |  Saving you £7.94 (112.62%)   |  RRP £14.99

  In this epic of Yakuza honour betrayal and bloodshed maverick director Takashi Miike creates uncompromisingly original take on the Japanese gangster movie... When a young Yakuza torments the customers in a rival crime family's nightclub it is not long before his dead body is found. Soon inter-family retaliation follows resulting in the death of a prominent crime boss. Devastated by this turn of events the temperamental Kenzaki vows to avenge his boss's death and as bloody vi

• Tetsuo - The Iron Man | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-5.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  In Tetsuo: The Iron Man Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much of David Cronenberg's work and then twists it into a Manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. A man (Tomoroh Taguchi) awakens from a nightmare in which his body is helplessly fusing with the metal objects around him, only to find it happening to him in real life... or is it? Haunted by memories of a hit and run (eerily prophetic of Cronenberg's Crash), the man knows this ordeal could be a dream, a fantastic form of divine retribution, or perhaps technological mutation born of guilt and rage. Shot in bracing black and white on a small budget, Tsukamoto puts a demented conceptual twist on good old-fashioned stop-motion effects and simple wire work, giving his film the surreal quality of a waking dream with a psychosexual edge (resulting in the film's most disturbing scene). The story ultimately takes on an abstract quality enhanced by the grungy look and increasingly wild images as they take to the streets in a mad chase of technological speed demons. This first entry in his self-titled "Regular Sized Monster Series" was followed by a full-colour sequel, Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, which trades the muddy experimental atmosphere for a big-budget sheen but can't top the cybershock to the system this movie packs.--Sean Axmaker

• Pyrokinesis | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £5.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Junko Aoki has always kept away from other people. Held to be rude and unfriendly her co-workers make no effort to associate with her. But Junko's remote appearance hides a deadly secret; she has the ability to start fires with her mind. This makes her one of the deadliest people on the planet. Life changes for her after she is befriended by fellow office worker Tada and his sister Yukie welcomes Junko as a member of the family. It is this emotional involvement that leads Junko's

• Asian Horror Triple Pack | DVD | (26/10/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Three classics to remind you why the new wave of Asian horror has been ripped off by Hollywood so often! A single man looking for a good time finds terror instead in the notorious Audition directed by cult auteur Takashi Miike (Ichi The Killer Visitor Q). T he man who kicked off the J-horror wave with Ring Hideo Nakata increases the tension realism and unease in the urban nightmare Dark Water since remade by Hollywood. Finally Pan-asian auteurs The Pang Bros. bring their famed editing skills to bear on the horror genre in the tense terrifying The Eye.

• Watcher in the Attic | DVD | (10/08/2009) from £9.98   |  Saving you £6.01 (37.60%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Goda (Renji Ishibashi) is the introverted owner of a boarding house where he routinely spies on his tenants through strategically placed holes in the ceiling. One afternoon he witnesses the wealthy Lady Minako (Junko Miyashita) having a sexual encounter with one of the tenants whose fetish is to dress up as a clown. Fully aware that she is being watched Lady Minako kills her lover. Goda conscious that Minako is aware of a witness to her crime does not go to the police. Instead he takes up the opportunity to kill another lodger himself. Soon the two meet and a deadly trust is born. Watcher in the Attic is based on a novel by the Japanese autor and critic Taro Hiral better known as Rampo Edogawa. Rampo was an admirer of western mystery writers such as Edgar Allen Poe. His pseudonym is actually a Japanese rendering of Poe's name. Like Poe's works Watcher in the Attic is a tale of mystery and macabre.

• Roningai | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  On the outskirts of old Tokyo stands an eatery which is a hangout for prostitutes. When the prostitutes are murdered one by one and a squad of samurais arrive in the area at the same time denouncing the whores as vermin who deserve death it is up to the local ronin to put an end to the injustice...

• Village Of Doom | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  As the storm cloud of war gathers over Japan the desperately patriotic Tsugio waits for his call up to duty. But in the close-knit community of his hometown of Higureya the women have grown desperate for the company of men. When Tsugio stumbles upon one adulterous union he too is quickly seduced. But this newfound experience quickly sours when Tsugio is diagnosed with tuberculosis and ostracised by the village. With everyone turned against him Tsugio takes to the streets ful