"Actor: Ren Osugi"

• Audition Blu-Ray | Blu Ray | (29/02/2016) from £14.30   |  Saving you £6.68 (59.06%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Much of the controversy surrounding Takashi Miike's Audition centres on the disturbing nature of the later part of the film--understandable when you consider the imprint these admittedly horrific images leave on the viewer--but fails to note the intricate social satire of the rest. This is a film that offers insight into the changing culture of Japan and the generation gap between young and old. Shigeharu Aoyama is looking for an obedient and virtuous woman to love and asks, "Where are all the good girls?"--a comment that seals his fate. A fake audition is organised to find Aoyama a wife. Asami Yamazaki is introduced as the virtuous woman he is looking for, dressing for the majority of the film in white and behaving with the courtesy of an angel, especially when juxtaposed against the brash stupidity of the other girls at the audition. Although his friend takes an immediate "chemical" dislike to her, Aoyama begins a love affair to end all love affairs. But as Asami's history unfolds we see her pain and torture and slowly understand that the tortured in this instance holds the power to become the torturer. Aoyama is slowly drawn away from his white, metallic and homely environment into the vivid- red and dirty-dark environment of Asami's sadistic world. Audition can be viewed on a number of levels, with important feminist, social and human rights issues to be drawn from the story. However, the real power of this film is its descent into the subconscious, to a point where reality is blurred and the audience is unable to decide whether the disturbing images on screen are real or surreal. This refined, hard-hitting and essentially Japanese style of horror is ultimately much more powerful than anything offered by Hollywood. This is a film that will get under your skin and infect your consciousness with a blend of fearless gore and unimaginable torture. It is not for the faint-hearted. --Nikki Disney

• Hana-bi (Fireworks) | Blu Ray | (11/01/2016) from £17.05   |  Saving you £2.94 (17.24%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Nishi leaves the police in the face of harrowing personal and professional difficulties. Spiraling into depression, he makes questionable decisions.

• Dead Or Alive | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £5.49   |  Saving you £9.50 (63.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The director of Dead or Alive, Takashi Miike, made his name on the international scene with Audition, a chilling psychological thriller that builds from a quiet start towards a prolonged torture sequence almost too unbearable to watch. But such deliberate pacing isn't typical of Miike, whose movies often assault the viewer with an onslaught of slam-bang action that makes John Woo look like Eric Rohmer. Dead or Alive, his most successful cops-vs-yakuza thriller to date, kicks off with six non-stop minutes of machine gun-paced violence, sex and slaughter, all set to a pounding heavy-metal beat. Thereafter things calm down a little, though not much. Given Miike's penchant for murky, livid-toned visuals and skewed camera angles, it's not always too easy to work out exactly who's doing what to whom, but the general outline's clear enough. The Tokyo underworld is being torn apart by a turf war between the yakuza gangs and the invading Chinese triads. Ambitious yakuza member Ryuichi isn't above playing both sides off against each other in his bid for power, while police detective Jojima, himself none too scrupulous in his methods, is out to destroy the gangs. Into this conventional plot framework Miike piles enough warped characters and bizarre, twisted happenings to fuel half-a-dozen Tarantino movies, while cheerfully borrowing--and inflating--key moments from such hard-boiled gangster-noirs as The Big Heat and Kiss Me Deadly. One character deep-fries his own hand, a stripper is drowned in a paddling-pool filled with her own excrement, and the literally apocalyptic finale, the showdown to end all showdowns, will leave you gasping. The appallingly prolific Miike, who regularly makes about five movies a year, has since directed two sequels--the first only three months after the original.--Philip Kemp

• The Twilight Samurai | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.89   |  Saving you £6.10 (88.53%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Highly acclaimed Japanese historical drama set in the late 1800s about a low-ranking samurai Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada) who has been caring for his two adored daughters and his aging mother since the death of his wife. While his co-workers go out drinking at the end of the day he heads straight home to his family earning the nickname 'Twilight Samurai'. A new chance of happiness appears to open up for Seibei when a long-ago childhood love Tomoe moves back to the area after fleeing her brutish husband. To defend her honour Seibei challenges her husband to a duel - which he wins despite being armed only with a sharpened stick. Seibei is then asked if he wants to marry Tomoe with whom he is desperately in love but tragically the Samurai code of honour and his shame about his poverty-stricken status force him to refuse her.

• The Twilight Samurai | DVD | (22/11/2004) from £17.98   |  Saving you £2.01 (10.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A low-ranking samurai must accept a deadly challenge with a rogue samurai just as he discovers that his childhood love is beyond his reach.

• Audition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (29/02/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  One of the most notorious J-horror films ever made, Takashi Miike's Audition exploded onto the festival circuit at the turn of the century to a chorus of awards and praise. The film would catapult Miike to the international scene and pave the way for such other genre delights as Ichii the Killer and The Happiness of the Katakuris. Recent widower Shigharu Aoyama is advised by his son to find a new wife, agreeing Shigeharu seeks the advice of a colleague having been out of the dating scene for many years. Taking advantage of their position as a film company they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes enchanted by Asami, a quiet, 24-year-old woman, who is immediately responsive to his charms. But soon things take a very dark and twisted turn as we find that Asami isn't what she seems to be Pulling the audience into a story that will lead to one of the most harrowing climaxes in cinema history, Miike twists and turns us through delirious editing and shocking visuals for one of the most depraved nightmares of all time! LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS: Limited Edition Steelbook Brand new 2K restoration of original vault elements Original 5.1 audio (DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray) Optional English subtitles Audio commentary with director Takashi Miike and screenwriter Daisuke Tengan Brand new commentary by Miike biographer Tom Mes examining the film and its source novel Introduction by Miike Ties that Bind A brand new interview with Takashi Miike Interviews with stars Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Renji Ishibashi and Ren Osugi Trailers Gallery including behind-the-scenes images Booklet featuring new writing on the film More to be announced!

• The Guard from Underground (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (07/04/2025) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A brand new restoration of the film which started Kiyoshi Kurosawa's career in horror! Before becoming one of Japan's most well-known horror directors through films like Cure, Pulse and Creepy, Kiyoshi Kurosawa started off his career in horror with 1992's The Guard from Underground, the final film of the ˜Directors Company'. Kiyoshi Kurosawa here fashions a dark tale that is both a sharp satire of corporate life and a B-movie thriller. A former sumo wrestler now working as a security guard goes on a murderous rampage in the company that's employed him.

• Audition | DVD | (31/07/2017) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Much of the controversy surrounding Takashi Miike's Audition centres on the disturbing nature of the later part of the film--understandable when you consider the imprint these admittedly horrific images leave on the viewer--but fails to note the intricate social satire of the rest. This is a film that offers insight into the changing culture of Japan and the generation gap between young and old. Shigeharu Aoyama is looking for an obedient and virtuous woman to love and asks, "Where are all the good girls?"--a comment that seals his fate. A fake audition is organised to find Aoyama a wife. Asami Yamazaki is introduced as the virtuous woman he is looking for, dressing for the majority of the film in white and behaving with the courtesy of an angel, especially when juxtaposed against the brash stupidity of the other girls at the audition. Although his friend takes an immediate "chemical" dislike to her, Aoyama begins a love affair to end all love affairs. But as Asami's history unfolds we see her pain and torture and slowly understand that the tortured in this instance holds the power to become the torturer. Aoyama is slowly drawn away from his white, metallic and homely environment into the vivid- red and dirty-dark environment of Asami's sadistic world. Audition can be viewed on a number of levels, with important feminist, social and human rights issues to be drawn from the story. However, the real power of this film is its descent into the subconscious, to a point where reality is blurred and the audience is unable to decide whether the disturbing images on screen are real or surreal. This refined, hard-hitting and essentially Japanese style of horror is ultimately much more powerful than anything offered by Hollywood. This is a film that will get under your skin and infect your consciousness with a blend of fearless gore and unimaginable torture. It is not for the faint-hearted. --Nikki Disney

• EXTE | DVD | (14/07/2008) from £6.95   |  Saving you £6.04 (86.91%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Customs agents discover a huge amount of human hair along with the bald corpse of a young girl. This arouses the curiosity of Yamazaki a mortuary employee with a hair fetish particularly since the girl's hair continues to grow. Now a mad hair-peddler with an endless stock of locks Yamazaki sells her ever-growing hair to salons to be used for extensions. Meanwhile Yuko an up-and-coming hair stylist is entrusted with the care of her timid and frightened niece Mami whose body bares the signs of abuse. It's not long before death surrounds them and their extension-wearing clientele. The hair it seems has a life of its own with lethal vengeful intentions. And Yuko and Mami must untangle the mystery before more deaths occur. Directed by Sion Sono Hair Extensions will make your hair stand on end!

• Dead Or Alive 2 | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £8.49   |  Saving you £6.50 (43.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  An off-the-cuff Japanese gangster movie with an absurdist streak that shades into surrealism, Dead or Alive 2 isn't thrown by its brief to sequelise a film that ended not only with the deaths of its lead characters but the destruction of Japan. Takashi Miike--the prolific auteur whose best-known film is the atypically considered Audition--brings back his lead actors in different roles and spins off another strange shaggy dog tale. The film starts out with a Yakuza vs Triads gang war in the offing, then sidesteps into "'Beat"' Miike territory as a couple of hit-men who meet when they turn up for the same assassination turn out to be childhood friends and enjoy a nostalgic wallow as they return to the orphanage where they met, re-encounter other old pals and even stand in for some injured actors putting on a play for the children. White-suited and terminally ill Sawada (Riki Takeuchi) and bleached blond and Hawaiian-shirted Otamoko (Sho Aikawa) get back to gunplay, committing contract murders and funnelling the profits into third world charities, which earns them occasional angel-wings or transformations back into innocent children. In constant danger of collapse, the film keeps pulling surprises: txt msg-addicted killers, an animated diagram of bullet trajectories through an unfortunate dwarf's brain. The first film blew up the country because it couldn't think of an ending, and this also has a lot of trouble signing off, with protracted deaths and redemptions for the heroes. Miike alternates clumsiness and confusion with exciting and powerful cinema. --Kim Newman

• MPD - Psycho | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £17.53   |  Saving you £4.46 (25.44%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Detective Yousuke Kobayashi is on a case involving a series of brutal murders. When his very own girlfriend's dismembered body is mailed to him in a cooler he is pushed over the edge: eventually tracking down the murderer and savagely killing him. During his murder trial he declares that his name is not Yousuke Kobayashi but Kazuhiko Amamiya. Sentenced for murder he is eventually diagnosed as suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder... However it is only a matter of time until

• Bodyguard Kiba | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Bodyguard Kiba is another comic book adaptation by maverick director Takashi Miike. In addition to his karate dojo Tetsu daito runs God Hand a company through which his apprentice Naoto Kiba hires himself out as a bodyguard in order to earn money to support the dojo. Though Kiba has often heard his master say that no one would come to God Hand with a dangerous assignment he is constantly in danger. This time he agrees to guard a beautiful woman in Hong Kong think

• MPD - Psycho Series 1 - Parts 3 And 4 - The Life Constructed In Double Spiral / Smashed Ants | DVD | (28/02/2005) from £13.79   |  Saving you £6.20 (44.96%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Part 2 in the journey of detective Yousuke Kobayashi/Kazuhiko Amamiya. Featuring 2 episodes of MPD Psycho. The Life Constructed In Double Spiral: Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill) guest stars in this episode which finds Detective Amamiya and the police team investigating the mass suicide of forty high school girls. Amamiya goes undercover as a high school teacher to find out why and learn more about a new generation of barcode carrying humans many of whom are students. Smashed

• MPD - Psycho Series 1 - Parts 1 And 2 - Drifting Petals / Memories Of Sin | DVD | (31/01/2005) from £6.92   |  Saving you £-1.93 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Detective Yousuke Kobayashi is on a case involving a series of brutal murders. When his very own girlfriend's dismembered body is mailed to him in a cooler he is pushed over the edge: eventually tracking down the murderer and savagely killing him. During his murder trial he declares that his name is not Yousuke Kobayashi but Kazuhiko Amamiya. Sentenced for murder he is eventually diagnosed as suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder... However it is only a matter of time until

• MPD - Psycho Series 1 - Parts 5 And 6 - Coronation Of Cursed King / Ascension Of Spirits | DVD | (21/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Part 3 in in the journey of detective Yousuke Kobayashi/Kazuhiko Amamiya. Featuring 2 episodes of MPD Psycho. Coronation Of The Cursed King: Cult members spontaneously combust when the barcode network is infected. The burn victims are taken to the local hospital where a lonely employee's cyber-girlfriend tells them to kill people. Detective Amamiya and his team lock down the hospital while strange things happen on the secret 13th floor. Ascension Of Spirits And Bonds Of M

• Asian Shockers | DVD | (20/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

• Full Metal Yakuza | DVD | (23/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A wannabe yakuza seems permanently grounded on the lowest rung of the local crime syndicate. However an unsual (and rather unpleasant) incident renders this no-hoper as a formidable cybernetic fighting machine! Another mightily wacky underworld thriller from cult Japanese director Takashi Miike.

• Gangster: The Yards, Brother, Ghost Dog | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The Yards:'The Yards' is a tense thriller set in the vast New York City subway yards. After serving time in prison for taking the fall for a group of friends Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) just wants to get his life back on track. So he goes to the one place he thinks he'll be safe: home. There he takes a job with his highly connected and influential uncle Frank (James Caan) and is reunited with his long-time friend Willie Gutierez (Joaquin Phoenix) and Willie's girlfriend Erica (Charlize Theron). But in the yards where his uncle now pulls the strings safe is not how they do business. Unwittingly he's drawn into a world of sabotage high stakes payoffs and murder. And the secret he discovers will make him the target of the most ruthless family in the city: his own. Now in the name of justice he'll have to do everything in his power to bring them down. Brother:In Japan the sworn brotherhood of the Yakuza is described as being 'thicker than the blood of kindred brothers'. With his life under threat disgraced Yakuza hard man Yamamoto escapes to Los Angeles in search of his half-brother Ken a small-time drug dealer. Unable to speak the language and confused by his surrounding Yamamoto teams up with Ken and his friend and fellow gang-member Denny. Soon Yamamoto finds himself back in the old routine. His ruthless efficiency in terrorising and killing rival gang members shocks even the blood hardened Americans and before long Yamamoto's gang is strong enough to join forces with a rival Japanese crime lord called Shirase. Ghost Dog:Ghost Dog lives above the world alongside a flock of birds in a homemade shack on the roof of an abandoned building. Guided by the words of an ancient Samurai text Ghost Dog is a professional killer able to dissolve into the night and move throughout the city unnoticed. When Ghost Dog's code is dangerously betrayed by the dysfunctional mafia family that occasionally employs him he must find a way to defend himself without breaking the code of the samurai.

• The Films Of Takashi Miike | DVD | (01/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Takashi Miike is one of the world's most prolific directors working today. Miike is one of those directors who is willing to push the boundaries of what is acceptable on celluloid as these two films clearly demonstrate... Full Metal Yakuza (1997): Part Man Part Machine All Yakuza A wannabe yakuza seems permanently grounded on the lowest rung of the local crime syndicate. However an unsual (and rather unpleasant) incident renders this no-hoper as a formidable cybernetic fighting machine! Another mightily wacky underworld thriller from cult Japanese director Takashi Miike. Fudoh: The New Generation (1996): When a Yakuza commits a terrible error he must pay a tribute to show loyalty to the other Yakuza families by killing his eldest son. Ten years later his youngest son uncovers the grisly act and organizes his friends to take revenge against his father and all the other Yakuza leaders for practicing outdated customs...

• Persona | DVD | (27/11/2006) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-5.59 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on the novel by Osamu Soda this psychological mystery thriller deals with issue of identity and the struggle for individuality in modern day Japan. Yuki Kawamura and mitsugi Ashihara are students at the private Koyokan High School. One day they receive an e-mail invitation to a 'mask' party from the quiet and introverted classmate from their old middle school. Strange things start to happen at their school as pupils start to don masks and take on new personas. This fashion