RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2025 On April 1, 2025, Criterion is releasing a 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray for Ugetsu, a 1953 classic of Japanese cinema from director Kenji Mizoguchi (The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, The Life of Oharu). By the time he made Ugetsu, Kenji Mizoguchi was already an elder statesman of Japanese cinema, fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other directors of a younger generation. And with this … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: April 25, 202 On April 25, 2025, Radiance Films is releasing the Blu-ray (Region A/B) for A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness, Seijun Suzuki’s (The Man with a Shotgun) 1977 comeback film after being blacklisted by the film industry for ten years. Though adapted from a popular manga, the bold visuals and absurdist plot twists are vintage Suzuki. The editor of a sports magazine grooms fashion model Reiko … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2025 On March 3, 2025, 88 Films is releasing a Blu-ray (Region A/B) release for 1970’s Play it Cool, a little-seen gem by one of Japan’s most highly regarded directors of the 1960s, Yasuzō Masumura (Giants and Toys, Irezumi), a filmmaker known for his social satires and powerful portrayals of women. Play it Cool is a chic and erotically charged drama starring popular Japanese singer of … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2025 On April 15, 2025, Cleopatra Entertainment is releasing a Blu-ray (Region A) for The Beast Hand, a 2024 horror film from director Taichiro Natsume (Love Shark). Osamu (Takahiro Fukuya), a Japanese day laborer, is forced into a lifestyle of crime. Unfortunately, when he crosses the wrong gangsters, they punish him by Sword, amputating his left hand in the process. Osamu’s ex-girlfriend Koyuki takes him to … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025 On March 24, 2025, 88 Films will release a Blu-ray for 964 Pinocchio (aka Screams of Blasphemy), a 1991 Japanese cyberpunk-horror film directed by Shozin Fukui (Rubber’s Lover). 964 Pinocchio depicts the nightmarishly surreal adventures of an illegally manufactured sex android found abandoned by his former owner and rescued from the scrap heap by a young woman, Himiko. She begins to tutor him in the … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025 On March 24, 2025, 88 Films will release a Blu-ray (Region B) for Yumeno Kyusaku’s Girl Hell, a 1977 horror film directed by Masaru Konuma (Beach, La Ronde). Passions are inflamed in an elite school for girls in 1930s Japan in Yumeno Kyusaku’s Girl Hell, as two of its students find solace away from the crowd in each other’s company. But can their love flourish … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025 On March 24, 2025, 88 Films will be releasing the Blu-ray (Region A/B) for An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty, a 1984 erotic Shaw Brothers thriller from director Eddie Fong Ling-Ching (Cherry Blossoms). One of the last films produced at Hong Kong’s legendary Shaw Brothers studio, and absolutely one of their finest – a visually ravishing and erotically charged story of a free-spirited female poet … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025 On March 24, 2025, 88 Films will release a Blu-ray (Region B) for Assault! Jack The Ripper, a 1976 erotic thriller from director Yasuharu Hasebe (Black Tight Killers). Ken (Yutaka Hayashi), a serious young man working as a cake decorator at an upmarket coffeeshop, finds himself led seriously astray by his feisty waitress coworker Yuri (the unforgettable Tamaki Katsura) after a chance encounter with a … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025 On March 24, 2025, 88 Films will be releasing the Blu-ray (Region A/B) for Hong Kong, Hong Kong, a 1983 Shaw Brothers film from director Clifford Choi Kai-Kwong (North South West East). There’s much more to Hong Kong cinema than kung fu flicks: Hong Kong, Hong Kong is a social realist drama with a huge heart, following two lovers dreaming of a better life: Man … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025 On March 24, 2025, 88 Films will be releasing the Blu-ray (Region B) for Stanley Kwan’s 1991 film, Center Stage. Center Stage is set during China’s silent movie era and revolves around the life of the legendary life of a gifted actress, Ruan Ling-yu. With her sensitive portrayal, Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (Project A II) took her story abroad and won the best actress award at … Continue reading →

RELEASE DATE: February 10, 2025 On February 10, 2025, Arrow Video is releasing 1967’s A Certain Killer/A Killer’s Key on Blu-ray (Region A/B), two Yakuza crime thrillers directed by Kazuo Mori (Samurai Vendetta) and co-scripted by the director Yasuzō Masumura (Giants and Toys, Blind Beast). Anticipating the cool aesthetic of Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill and based on a crime novel by Shinji Fujiwara, the author of the original material … Continue reading →