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Around 1976, Toei Studios showed the money to two of its star directors, Kinji Fukasaku and Sadao Nakajima, to direct their own versions of vehicular mayhem action features, both starring one of their key leading men Tsunehiko Watase. Nakajima’s effort was released in May, 1976 in the form of the stylish “A Savage Beast Goes Mad”, but it was Fukasaku’s output that came earlier, with “Violent Panic: The Big Crash” hitting theatres in February, 1976.

“Violent Panic: The Big Crash” is released by Film Movement

Bank robbers Yamanaka Takashi and Seki Mitsuo have been plaguing Japan, doing smash-and-grab jobs in banks across the country. The young and rebellious Midorikawa Michi, who Takashi has a soft spot for, keeps throwing a spanner in his plans but Takashi is determined to pull one last big job and retire to Brazil with the loot. The two robbers finalise on Kobe as that job, but...

“Kagemusha” is one of the best films Akira Kurosawa ever shot and is considered one of the definite masterpieces of world cinema. However, its production was one of the most difficult accomplishments in the master's filmography. Initially, the film was not considered financially viable, and it took the influence of both George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola to get additional funds for it to be completed, since Toho, the initial production company, had given up on the film. However, the problems continued during the shooting, with probably the most significant being that Kurosawa had to replace Shintaro Katsu, who was originally cast as Takeda Shingen, with Tatsuya Nakadai, after the two of them had a falling out. The production faced many additional problems, but Kurosawa eventually managed to complete the movie, with its premiere taking place in Tokyo. His struggles, however, paid off, since “Kagemusha” was a huge hit both critically and financially.

The Film

When Battle Royale came out in 2000, I was 19 and just really getting into foreign language films. Like many of my generation of cinephiles, it was an early part of my DVD collection. While I enjoyed it though, I have to confess that I’ve not been back to it for over 15 years, and I never used it as a jumping off point to discover more of its director Kinji Fukasaku’s work. On this evidence, that was an error.

After a failed rebellion in which 37,000 Christians are massacred, their leader Amakusa Shiro (Kenji Sawada) returns from the dead, pledges his soul to the Devil and becomes a demon who can resurrect others to join him in his quest for vengeance. This is an interesting jumping off point for the film, because for much of the opening half hour, as Shiro gathers his band of demons (including swordmaster Miyamoto Musashi...

by Nathan Stuart

On June 11 2023, Sadao Nakajima sadly passed away in Kyoto after a bout of pneumonia at the age of 88. He leaves behind a rich and deep cinematic legacy, one that has rightly been praised in his home of Japan, but one that has never received its proper recognition in the West, much in part to his work being overshadowed, ironically, by that of his friend Kinji Fukasaku. Outside of niche circles of fans who have zealously consumed as much of his work as possible via bootlegs, not much has been said or written about Nakajima, despite his 1976 Jitsuroku classic ‘Okinawa Yakuza War' already having a cult following, even without a legitimate disc release.

Born in Togane City in 1934, he lost his father at the age of 10 to the Second World War and would go on to graduate from Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya High School in 1954, before spending a further...

Due to the strong impression left on the first film, the same creative crew returned for this brazen and highly-enjoyable follow-up that carries on the sensational adventures of detective Li Koryu. Rushed to theaters three months after the original, this wild and utterly frenzied sequel is now part of the complete Sister Street Fighter Collection released by Arrow Films on March 5 in a 2-disc Blu-Ray set.

After a detective is killed, detective Li Koryu is assigned to look into the case involving the diamond smuggler Kazushige Osone who lives in Japan. After arriving in Yokohama and meeting her sister Li Ban-lan (Tamayo Mitsukawa), Koryu immediately finds herself in the bosses’ crosshairs, as he carries out a scheme involving the smuggling of diamonds from Hong Kong to Japan inside the bodies of prostitutes and then being removed, of which her friend Birei (Hisako Tanaka) is included in. Forced...