In 1989, the Toei film company in Japan which specialized in
theatrical feature film production and releases decided to shift gears with the
creation of V-Cinema or distinctly Japanese direct-to-video low-budget
films. Often consisting of crime
thrillers and/or erotica, the V-Cinema movement in Japan saw not only notable
big screen Japanese directors coming to work in the small screen but it also
gave rise to directors like Kiyoshi Kurosawa or Takashi Miike. Characterized by being transgressive whether
it be violence or sexual content, V-Cinema skirted a fine line between the Japanese
Roman Porno movement and China’s own Category III line of boundary pushing
low-budget freakouts.
While not wholly
unlike the West’s own straight-to-video industry, the films curated here by Arrow
Video on restored Blu-Ray disc for the first time represent some of the very
best as well as most strikingly rough examples of the V-Cinema movement. For what promises to be an ongoing series of
home video releases for the boutique label, the aptly named V-Cinema
Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal comprises a total of nine films
showcasing to fans and newcomers just precisely what was this explosive
movement of grungy grimy Japanese crime thrillers.
Spread across five discs with new digital transfers which
breathe new life into the original masters not wholly unlike the Second Sight restored
Blu-Ray of The Blair Witch Project whose telecine equipment used to scan
the material revealed details previously invisible on the original release, V-Cinema
Essentials offers these gritty grainy 16mm efforts with picture quality
likely vastly superior to their original appearances. Beginning with the 1989 Shundo Okawa directed
one-hour effort Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage, we see a revenge saga
involving a detective out for bloody vengeance after criminals gunned down his
partner.
Brisk yet colorfully grainy,
the brief running time echoes that of Shinya Tsukamoto’s timeless gutcruncher Tetsuo:
The Iron Man and offers up a sizable amount of action thrills including but
not limited to a gunslinging nun as his sidekick. Next is Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet
with Sho Aikawa as Junko who longs to be a yakuza but bites off more than
he can chew when he’s asked to perform the murder of a fellow gang member or
face the consequences. It’s an
entertaining early example of pre-Takashi Miike Sho Aikawa who would later make
cinema infamy with the Dead or Alive trilogy.
Third on the list is Shunichi Nagasaki’s Stranger which
sees a willfully stubborn female cab driver trying to shirk off her own
criminal past when she begins being stalked Duel style by a mysterious
SUV driver who rams into her car and/or smashes out the windows with a
crowbar. Despite the encroaching
dangers, the woman refuses any help from a man, making it an unlikely battle of
the sexes as she fends for survival.
Fourth on the lineup is Carlos with The Happiness of the Katakuris
actor Naoto Takenaka as a Brailian-Japanese criminal with a hairbrained
idea of turning rival yakuza factions against one another, something which
comes back to haunt him later.
Number
five consists of Yoichi Sai’s Burning Dog which involves a heist
operation in Okinawa of a US military base, however the plan quickly spirals
out of control amid rising tensions feuding between the members. Most curiously is the 1991 arrival of the
first V-Cinema iteration of the Female Prisoner Scorpion series which
also saw a standalone Arrow Video box of all the Meiko Kaji features. While recast here with a different actress
with a tendency towards catfighting, Female Prisoner Scorpion: Death Threat by
Mermaid Legend director Toshiharu Ikeda nevertheless represented a
full-circle return to the legendary heroine through the lens of the gritty
V-Cinema small screen.
With number six The Hitman: Blood Smells Like Roses,
V-Cinema began incorporating legendary filmmakers like Teruo Ishii into the
small screen arena and here, we find a man on a path of vengeance after his fiancée
is gunned down amid crossfire exchanged by rival yakuza gangs. It’s a sexy film with lush colors and a tough
lone hero not easily seduced by prostitutes throwing their naked selves upon
him. Next up among the legends is Roman
Porno titan Yasuharu Hasebe’s Danger Point: The Road to Hell which
brings Sho Aikawa back into the lineup alongside Nikkatsu legend Jo Shishido as
two contract killers who find each other at odds when their most recent hit job
unleashes unforeseen consequences upon the duo.
Last but certainly not least and far and away the sleaziest and most
extreme offering in the set is undoubtedly Masara Konuma’s XX: Beautiful
Hunter with Makiko Kuno as Shion the highly trained assassin of the
Magnificat. A cold-blooded killer, she
is witnessed by a reporter she is tasked with rubbing out but quickly discovers
she has sexual feelings for the man and finds herself torn between succumbing to
love or maintaining a life of ruthless killings. It’s this one that will test the endurance of
unsuspecting film critics tasked with reviewing this set only to get an unexpected
protracted sequence of sexual torture that goes on for several minutes. I felt myself thinking ‘What did I do to
arrive here?’.
Spread across five discs with reversible sleeve art across
all five amaray cases housed in the hard box, an illustrated collector’s booklet
with essay writings by Earl Jackson, Daisuke Miyao and Hayley Scanlon, V-Cinema
Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal is positively jam packed with content
whether it includes the films themselves or the wide array of special features
including audio commentaries from Tom Mes and new introductions to each film by
Japanese critic Masaki Tanioka. As to
whether or not these grungy, grimy bruisers and bleeders are to most people’s
liking depends on your interest in all things Japanese cinema related.
From a purely technical end, the set is a
major feat with every film looking and sounding far better than any of them
originally did or rather have a right to.
While some of these films might be bumpier than most are willing to take
on, especially that very last one which flirted with the Chinese Category III
level of transgression and lurid sexuality, V-Cinema Essentials is
nevertheless a fantastic package from Arrow and hopefully will be the first in
a long line of V-Cinema boxed sets to come down the cinematic line in the near
future.
--Andrew Kotwicki