"Actor: Shinsuke Ashida"

• Red Angel | Blu Ray | (17/01/2022) from £9.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Directed by Yasuzo Masumura (Giants and Toys, Blind Beast), Red Angel takes an unflinching look at the horror and futility of war through the eyes of a dedicated and selfless young military nurse. When Sakura Nishi is dispatched in 1939 to a ramshackle field hospital in Tientsin, the frontline of Japan's war with China, she and her colleagues find themselves fighting a losing battle tending to the war-wounded and emotionally shellshocked soldiers while assisting head surgeon Dr Okabe conduct an unending series of amputations. As the Chinese troops close in, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Okabe who, impotent to stall the mounting piles of cadavers, has retreated into his own private hell of morphine addiction. Adapted from the novel by Yorichika Arima, Masumura's harrowing portrait of women and war is considered the finest of his collaborations with Ayako Wakao (A Wife Confesses, Irezumi) and features startling monochrome scope cinematography by Setsuo Kobayashi (Fires on the Plain, An Actor's Revenge). Special Features High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original uncompressed Japanese mono audio Optional English subtitles Brand new audio commentary by Japanese cinema scholar David Desser Newly filmed introduction by Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns Not All Angels Have Wings, a new visual essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum Original Trailer Image Gallery Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Irene González-López

• Red Angel | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £9.98   |  Saving you £10.01 (50.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  One of Japan's most notorious and internationally criminally under-exposed films. Shocking beautiful and moving in equal measure this is one of Masumura's very finest achievements. Set against the Sino-Japanese war in 1939 a young angelic military nurse is raped by her patients and sent to the front line for daring to register a complaint. Posted to a rag-tag demoralised unit she falls in love with an impotent morphine-addicted surgeon. Together the pair seek solace in each othe