"Director: Kinji Fukasaku"

• Shogun's Samurai | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With Shogun Samurai, veteran Japanese director Fukasaku Kinji demonstrated that he could do more than the gritty social realist cop-and-gangster films for which he remains most famous. A deliberately stately historical drama, with a slightly ponderous narrator introducing some of its most powerful scenes, Shogun Samurai shows the succession crisis that followed the death of the second Tokugawa Shogun in the early 17th-century. The Imperial court fans the flames in an attempt to restore the Emperor's power; a young dancer tries to preserve the young prince she loves; a warrior clan take steps to return to their homeland; and the fencing master Yagyu will expend honour and lives, including those of his own children, to ensure that his school is patronised by the new Shogun. The film alternates powerful scenes of intrigue and stagy monomaniac rants by Yagyu with finely choreographed scenes of battle and duel; it has a powerful and tragic sense of the fragile sadness of things and the futility of all ambitions; Sonny Chiba is unusually impressive as Yagyu's most honourable son, the one-eyed Jubel. On the DVD: Shogun Samurai on disc has minimal additional features: a short prose profile of Fukasaku Kinji and some promotional clips. Picture is anamorphic 16:9. --Roz Kaveney

• Graveyard Of Honour | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Rikio Ishikawa is a brutal street thug who is drawn into the powerful Kawada gang in 1946 Tokyo. His insubordination and rebelliousness encourage him to start his own Yakuza family but he decides the easiest way would be to challenge his own Godfather whom he brutally attacks. This disrespect to his boss brings the ultimate form of disgrace upon himself and his 'family'. For his own safety he surrenders to the police and spends more than a year in jail. But Ishikawa's dishonourable

• Battle Royale | DVD | (05/04/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This ultra violent satire from Japan tells of 42 teenagers taken to a remote island where they are told that if they wish to survive they must kill all of the others!

• Legend Of The Eight Samurai | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A princess whose clan is destroyed by an army of phantom warriors bands together with eight masterless samurai to defeat the ghostly swordsmen. Along the way they learn that a powerful witch is in command of the ghosts and it is she that must be defeated in order to enact their brutal but necessary vengeance... Inspired by the epic 1814 Japanese novel Nanso Satomi Hakkenden' by Takizawa Bakin this movie sees 1980s super-producer Hiroyuki Kadokawa and legendary director Kinji Fuku

• Yakuza Box Set | DVD | (17/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Three tough thrillers from the acclaimed director of 'Battle Royale'. Graveyard Of Honour: Rikio Ishikawa is a brutal street thug who is drawn into the powerful Kawada gang in 1946 Tokyo. His insubordination and rebelliousness encourage him to start his own Yakuza family but he decides the easiest way would be to challenge his own Godfather whom he brutally attacks. This disrespect to his boss brings the ultimate form of disgrace upon himself and his 'family'. For his own

• Fukasaku Trilogy | DVD | (23/06/2008) from £27.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The breakout success of the fantastic Battle Royale resulted in long-overdue global recognition of the films of Kinji Fukasaku. This prolific Japanese filmmaker who died in 2003 had already made himself a name in his home country as an auteur who favoured outrageous style and biting social commentary. This collection brings together three exciting and colourful early films from Japanese cinema's most exhilarating director. Titles Comprise: Blackmail Is My Life: Tautly paced and fueled by a trendy soundtrack synthesis of whistled themes and electric rock Blackmail Is My Life centers on a quartet of young daredevil hipsters who discover blackmail as a means to enjoy the booming economy from which they've been excluded. These rebellious youths tread a deadly line by blackmailing both sides of society- namely the Yakuza kingpins and top government officials. Blackmail Is My Life is a bloody wake-up call to Japanese culture and budding criminals and a perfect example of the director working in his prime. Black Rose Mansion: A feverishly perverse 1969 film noir oddity starring female impersonator Akihiro Maruyama. When wealthy Kyohei hires singer Black Rose to perform in his exclusive men's club he gets more than he bargains for when she attracts scores of homicidal past lovers. The film takes a bizarre twist when Kyohei's son falls victim to the femme fatale's unique charm. If You Were Young: If You Were Young highlights the other side of post-war Japanese prosperity focusing on the throngs of young people who missed out on the boom. We follow a group of young men that can't seem to get ahead despite their willingness to try. Then one hits upon a plan - to work together to save for a dump truck and thus become independent contractors and be their own bosses at last. Ultimately life presents obstacles: jail for one violence at the hands of the police for another and a girlfriend and subsequent children for the third. An early Kinji Fukasaku gem that imports the freewheeling style of the French New Wave and the hip detachment of American noir.

• Battle Royale 2 - Revenge | DVD | (22/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  This time it's war! Louder longer even more brutal! Battle Royale 2 gets an extended version! Three years after the events of the original Battle Royale the survivor of the game Shuya Nanahara is now an internationally-known terrorist and leading his group known as Wild Seven is determined to bring down the government. To counter this new threat the government enacts the New Century Terrorist Counter - Measure Alternative program (a.k.a. the Battle Royale II act) and sends the forty-two students of Shikanotoride Junior High Class 3-B to hunt Nanahara and his cohorts down in their island stronghold. Shiori Kitano the daughter of the late headmaster of Nanahara's first Battle Royale signs up for the program to avenge her father. In order for the government to study the benefits of teamwork the new students are forced to work in pairs with their collars electronically linked so that if one of them is killed the other dies as well. They must kill Nanahara in three days or die... Director Kinji Fukasaku died during the making of the film and so it fell to his son Kenta to complete this apocalyptic vision in the process turning it into an even bigger box-office smash than the original in Japan. Liberally soaked in black humour and satirical comments on current world affairs the fight for survival is on!

• Black Rose Mansion | DVD | (27/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Famous female impersonator/singer Akihiro Maruyama fresh from success in Kinji Fukasaku's baroquely psychedelic Black Lizard returns in this feverishly perverse campy follow-up. Wealthy Kyohei (Eitaro Ozawa-A Taxing Woman the H-Man) installs songbird Black Rose (Maruyama) in his elegant private men's club to bolster business-but Kyohei gets more than he bargained for when she attracts scores of homicidal past lovers and not only he but his ne'er-do-well son (Masakazu Tamura) end up falling for the femme fatale.

• The Triple Cross | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Triple Cross is a Japanese crime thriller that follows the bloody aftermath of a heist. Three robbers are double-crossed by new accomplice, Kazuya Kimura, and Kenichi Hagiwara takes the Lee Marvin Point Blank road, tracking him down amid escalating carnage and spectacular car chases. The film is littered with homages to crime classics, from the outlaw lovers of A Bout de Souffle to Hagiwara sporting a nose plaster in recognition of Jack Nicholson's Chinatown. Sonny Chiba is wasted in a supporting role but, given that the movie is being promoted as Reservoir Dogs-meets-John Woo, it's worth noting that Chiba is among Quentin Tarantino's favourite actors and stars in his forthcoming Kill Bill (2003). The Triple Cross (the American title Double Cross is far more accurate) is a well-crafted collection of gangster clichés, but suffers from a very uncertain tone, being pitched uneasily between serious crime drama and tongue-in-cheek comic-book action. Released following the success of director Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (2000) this film from 1992 nonetheless anticipates many of the themes and attitudes of post-Tarantino crime cinema with remarkable prescience. Those who prefer their cinema to recognise civilised values or any sense of morality best look elsewhere. On the DVD: The Triple Cross disc has a 1.78:1 anamorphically enhanced transfer that is slightly soft in many shots, while the night-time scenes, filmed with very high contrast, are overly dark and lack detail in the shadows. The film was released theatrically in Dolby Stereo and though the packaging states 2.0 Dolby Digital the reality is very flat and dull Dolby Prologic mono. Explosions are squibs and gunshots lifeless. For a 1992 action movie the result is lamentable, but at least the subtitles are clear and free of the howlers that plague many comparable Hong Kong films. The DVD also features the original Japanese trailer and eight additional trailers for films on the Tokyo Bullet label. There is a gallery reproducing the original promotional stills, and well-written and reasonably extensive biographies and/or filmographies for five of the cast. --Gary S Dalkin

• Blackmail is my Life | DVD | (27/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Blackmail Is My Life