"Actor: Hideaki Nitani"

• Retaliation | Blu Ray | (11/05/2015) from £35.74   |  Saving you £-15.75 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In 1969 future sexploitation specialist Yasuharu Hasebe (Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter) teamed up with the inimitable Jô Shishido (Tokyo Drifter Branded to Kill) for a follow up to their yakuza hit Massacre Gun. A tale of gang warfare that features a raft of the period’s most iconic stars Akira Kobayashi (Battles Without Honor and Humanity The Flowers and the Angry Waves) is a yakuza lieutenant who emerges from jail to find his gang dispersed and his aging boss in his sickbed. Shishido is the rival waiting to kill him and a young Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood) is the girl caught in the crossfire. Gritty and cynical Retaliation is a hardboiled precursor to Kinji Fukasaku’s revisionist yakuza pictures of the 1970s. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: Limited Edition Blu-ray (3000 copies only) Restored High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation on Blu-ray for the first time in the world! Original uncompressed mono PCM audio Newly translated English subtitles Brand new interview with star Jô Shishido Interview with renowned critic and historian Tony Rayns Original theatrical trailer Gallery featuring rare promotional images Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp newly illustrated by Ian MacEwan and featuring original archive stills

• Underworld Beauty (+ Love Letter) (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (27/01/2025) from £17.81   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Retrieving the diamonds he stashed before his arrest, thief Miyamoto hopes to help his old partner Mihara, crippled during the heist. Their former boss, crime lord Oyane, offers to mediate with a foreign buyer, but secretly wants the stones for himself. The deal goes awry when gunmen appear on the scene. Mihara swallows the diamonds but dies in the chase, leaving a valuable corpse in the police morgue. Miyamoto forms an uneasy alliance with Mihara's wildcat sister Akiko to keep the gems away from gangsters, cops and even Akiko's greedy boyfriend. This wildly inventive early noir sees Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tattooed Life) infectiously playing with genre rules and gender stereotypes.

• Massacre Gun | Blu Ray | (14/08/2017) from £16.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Genre icon Jô Shishido stars in this tense and violent yakuza yarn from genre stalwart and Seijun Suzuki s former assistant, Yasuharu Hasebe (Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701 s Grudge Song). Shishido stars as Kuroda, a mob hitman who turns on his employers after being forced to execute his lover. Joining forces with his similarly wronged brothers, hot-headed Eiji (Tatsuya Fuji, In the Realm of the Senses) and aspiring boxer Saburô (Jirô Okazaki, Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter), the trio escalate their mob retaliation to all-out turf war where no one will stop until one faction emerges victorious. Strikingly violent for the period and gorgeously photographed in monochrome like genre siblings Branded to Kill and A Colt is My Passport (Shishido s other films from 1967), Massacre Gun is a bold iteration on the genre featuring some stunning compositions and the assured direction of Hasebe.

• World Noir Vol. 1 | Blu Ray | (18/12/2023) from £43.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

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• Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Vol 1 | Blu Ray | (25/01/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Nikkatsu, the oldest film studio in Japan, inaugurated a star system in the late 1950s, finding talent and contracting to their Diamond Line for a series of wild genre pictures. This collection celebrates these Diamond Guys with three classic films from directors Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill), Toshio Masuda (Rusty Knife) and Buichi Saito (Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril). An old hand at tough guy action roles, Hideaki Nitani (Tokyo Drifter, Massacre Gun) stars in Suzuki's Voice Without a Shadow. Asako, a former telephone operator once heard the voice of a murder suspect which has continued to haunt her. Years later her husband invites his boss, Hamazaki, over for dinner and she realises his voice is suspiciously like that of the killer. Before she can investigate further, Hamazaki is found dead and her husband becomes the prime suspect Next, 50s subculture icon Yujiro Ishihara (Crazed Fruit) stars in Masuda's Red Pier as Jiro the Lefty, a killer with a natural talent. Shortly after arriving in Kobe, he witnesses a man die in a crane accident which turns out to be a cover-up for a murder. Jiro soon finds himself on the run, tailed by a determined cop Finally, in Saito's The Rambling Guitarist, mega star Akira Koabyashi (Battles Without Honour and Humanity) stars as wandering street musician Shinji, who falls in with mob boss Akitsu after saving one of his henchmen in a bar fight. Tasked by Akitsu with evicting an offshore fishery, Shinji finds himself in the middle of a very unusual domestic dispute Presented on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time in the West, these thrilling genre films feature Nikkatsu's leading talent at their best. Includes Special Edition Content: Limited Edition Blu-ray collection (3000 copies) High Definition digital transfers of all three films, from original film elements by Nikkatsu Corporation High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation Original uncompressed mono audio Newly translated English subtitles Specially recorded video discussions with Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp on Diamond Guys Hideaki Nitani and Yujiro Ishihara Original trailers for all three films and trailer preview for Diamond Guys Vol. 2 Extensive promotional image galleries for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys Booklet featuring new essays on all three films and director profiles by Stuart Galbraith, Tom Mes and Mark Schilling

• Tokyo Drifter | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Tokyo Drifter director Seijun Suzuki transforms the yakuza genre into a pop-art James Bond cartoon as directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The near-incomprehensible plot is negligible: hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari), a cool killer in dark shades who whistles his own theme song, discovers his own mob has betrayed his code of ethics and hits the road like a questing warrior, with not one but two mobs hot on his trail. In a world of shifting loyalties Tetsu is the last honourable man, a character who might have stepped out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film and into the delirious, colour-soaked landscape of this Vincent Minnelli musical-turned-gangster war zone. The twisting narrative takes Tetsu from deliriously gaudy nightclubs, where killers hide behind every pillar, to the beautiful snowy plains of northern Japan and back again, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Suzuki opens the widescreen production in stark, high-contrast black and white with isolated eruptions of colour which finally explode in a screen glowing with oversaturated hues, like a comic book come to life. His extreme stylisation, jarring narrative leaps and wild plot devices combine to create pulp fiction on acid, equal parts gangster parody and post-modern deconstruction. Mere description cannot capture the visceral effect of Suzuki's surreal cinematic fireworks. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Massacre Gun | DVD | (14/08/2017) from £7.87   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Genre icon Jô Shishido stars in this tense and violent yakuza yarn from genre stalwart and Seijun Suzuki s former assistant, Yasuharu Hasebe (Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701 s Grudge Song). Shishido stars as Kuroda, a mob hitman who turns on his employers after being forced to execute his lover. Joining forces with his similarly wronged brothers, hot-headed Eiji (Tatsuya Fuji, In the Realm of the Senses) and aspiring boxer Saburô (Jirô Okazaki, Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter), the trio escalate their mob retaliation to all-out turf war where no one will stop until one faction emerges victorious. Strikingly violent for the period and gorgeously photographed in monochrome like genre siblings Branded to Kill and A Colt is My Passport (Shishido s other films from 1967), Massacre Gun is a bold iteration on the genre featuring some stunning compositions and the assured direction of Hasebe.