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  • Branded To Kill Coming To Blu-ray From Arrow

    Last Arrow announcement for the day (goddamn there were a lot)....

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    Release Date: 28 July 2014
    Format: Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD
    Starring: Jí´ Shishido, Kí´ji Nanbara, Isao Tamagawa
    Directed by: Seijun Suzuki

    Seijun Suzuki's delirious 1967 hit-man film has drawn comparisons with contemporaries Le Samourai and Point Blank and influenced directors such as John Woo, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino among others.

    The story of laconic yakuza Hanada, aka 'No. 3 Killer', the third rated hit-man in Japan who takes an impossible job from the mysterious, death obsessed Misako. Hanada bungles the hit and finds himself the target of his employers and a bullet ridden journey leads him to face the No. 1 Killer.

    Shot in cool monochrome with beguiling visuals, Branded to Kill is an effortlessly cool crime film with a jazzy score that caused Suzuki to be fired by the studio's executives but is now rightly recognised as his masterpiece.

    SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

    New High Definition digital transfer
    High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation
    Newly translated English subtitles for both films
    Interview with director Seijun Suzuki
    Interview with star Jo Shishido by critic and author Koshi Ueno
    Trapped in Lust [Aiyoku no wana] (1973) - A delirious roman porno re-imagining of Branded to Kill from Atsushi Yamatoya, one of Branded to Kill's screenwriters and Suzuki's regular collaborators
    Original Trailers for Branded to Kill and Trap of Lust
    Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan
    Booklet by Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp, illustrated with original stills and new artwork by Ian MacEwan


    Region: B
    Rating: TBC
    Cat No: FCD942
    Duration:TBC
    Language: Japanese
    Subtitles: English
    Aspect Ratio: TBC
    Audio: TBC
    Colour: Colour

    Rock! Shock! Pop!

  • #2
    Holy shit, this features Trapped in Lust (Trap of Lust) as an extra???? It's a cool film, caught it on 35mm last year in a Atsushi Yamatoya triple feature. I'd buy this just for that!!!

    edit: argh, I think it's standard def. only. Still very nice as long as it's NTSC or Native PAL.
    Takuma
    Senior Member
    Last edited by Takuma; 05-22-2014, 10:30 AM.

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    • #3
      Updated PR with screening info!

      IN SELECT CINEMAS- 25th JULY 2014

      DUAL-FORMAT RELEASE BLU-RAY & DVD RELEASE - 28th JULY 2014

      SCREENING - 22nd JULY, SOHO SCREENING ROOMS, 3.25pm



      Arrow Video is delighted to announce a limited theatrical run of the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release Branded to Kill, one of the undisputed classics of Japanese cinema. The film will open in select cinemas across the UK on 25th July before being released in a new digital transfer on Blu-ray and DVD from 28th July.



      “Time and place are nonsense,” Suzuki once famously said of his films, and some have gone as far to describe Branded to Kill as the cinematic equivalent of a 1960s Pop Art collage. The truth is that few outside of a select group of local cinéphiles and critics cared much for Branded to Kill upon its initial release in June 1967, least of all Kyí»saku Hori, the president of the Nikkatsu studio that produced it, who famously fired its director Seijun Suzuki claiming that his films didn't make sense and didn't make money.



      Branded to Kill presents an extraordinary experience. Opening with the sharp crack of gunfire beneath the Nikkatsu logo before the lilting theme tune kicks in to accompany the credits, from the offset the viewer is immersed in a world that can only be described as pure cinema. Its tale of Jí´ Shishido's hitman, Gorí´ Hanada, and his attempts to rise to top-dog position in the underworld ranking of contract killers is pared down to mythic abstraction.



      Branded to Kill is of a style all of its own. It operates simultaneously as a singularly nonconformist yet technically polished mood piece and as a sophisticated cinematic Rorschach that can be savoured again and again, with every further viewing revealing previously unnoticed aspects and individual meanings. Nonsense it may be, but it is intelligent, stylish and deliriously enjoyable nonsense, nonetheless.



      Complementing this dual-format Blu-ray and DVD edition are a host of all-new extras, including a newly restored digital transfer and newly translated English subtitles. Alongside this, the disc will feature interviews with both director Seijun Suzuki and star Jo Shishido.



      Most excitingly, the disc will include Trapped in Lust [Aiyoku no wana] (1973) - A delirious roman porno re-imagining of Branded to Kill from Atsushi Yamatoya (one of Branded to Kill's screenwriters and Suzuki's regular collaborators).



      One could fuel an entire retrospective of films whose constellation of shared staff and thematic elements feed backwards or forwards to Suzuki's iconic yet iconoclastic masterpiece of 1967, with Yamatoya's input in many of these ironically more a constant than that of the actual Branded to Kill director himself. Trapped in Lust suggests the extent to which Branded to Kill, while perhaps not such a typical work by its director as it is sometimes labelled, represents a 'Last Supper' moment, following which Suzuki and his seven Hachirí´ Guryí» disciples (plus the crucial new figure of Genjirí´ Arata) went their own ways out into the wider world of Japanese cinema to cause havoc and shake it up for good



      Jasper Sharp, writer and curator specialising in Japanese cinema



      Alongside this, the Blu-ray disc will also feature the original theatrical trailers for Branded to Kill and Trapped in Lust, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan and a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by author Jasper Sharp, illustrated with original stills and new artwork by Ian MacEwan.







      Synopsis:

      Seijun Suzuki's delirious 1967 hit-man film has drawn comparisons with contemporaries Le Samouraí¯ and Point Blank and influenced directors such as John Woo, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino among others.



      The story of laconic yakuza Hanada, aka 'No. 3 Killer', the third rated hit-man in Japan who takes an impossible job from the mysterious, death obsessed Misako. Hanada bungles the hit and finds himself the target of his employers and a bullet ridden journey leads him to face the No. 1 Killer.



      Shot in cool monochrome with beguiling visuals, Branded to Kill is an effortlessly cool crime film with a jazzy score that caused Suzuki to be fired by the studio's executives but is now rightly recognised as his masterpiece.









      SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:



      · New High Definition digital transfer

      · High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation

      · Newly translated English subtitles for both films

      · Interview with director Seijun Suzuki

      · Interview with star Jo Shishido by critic and author Koshi Ueno

      · Trapped in Lust [Aiyoku no wana] (1973) - A delirious roman porno re-imagining of Branded to Kill from Atsushi Yamatoya, one of Branded to Kill's screenwriters and Suzuki's regular collaborators

      · Original Trailers for Branded to Kill and Trapped in Lust

      · Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan

      · Booklet by Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp, illustrated with original stills and new artwork by Ian MacEwan




      Details



      Release Date Monday 28th July 2014

      Certificate 18

      Formats Blu-ray/DVD Dual Format

      Language Japanese

      Subtitles English

      Running Time 98 minutes

      Number of Discs 2

      Region B/2

      Aspect Ratio 2.35:1

      Audio 1.0 Mono

      Colour Black and White

      RRP Amaray £19.99

      Cat Number FCD942
      Rock! Shock! Pop!

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      • #4
        Looking forward to this release. Hopefully Arrow will release TOKYO DRIFTER at some point in the future too.
        'You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow'

        http://www.paul-a-j-lewis.com (my photography website)
        'All explaining in movies can be thrown out, I think': Elmore Leonard

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        • #5
          Beaver
          http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-r...ll_blu-ray.htm

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          • #6
            So they did include Trap of Lust in HD. But looking at the screenshots I can understand why it was only listed as an extra feature and not even mentioning whether its HD or not. :P It is HD but...

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            • #7
              Yeah, it doesn't look mind blowing but it's a great addition to the disc.
              Rock! Shock! Pop!

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              • #8
                Criterion announced they are releasing Branded to Kill on UHD in May.

                Comment


                • #9
                  A major mob shootout. Raw S&M sex. Several assassinations. A hero who huffs steamed rice. A scorecard style ranking of hit-men. An explosive fireball. This all happens in the first half hour or so of Seijun Suzuki's BRANDED TO KILL.

                  Suzuki's cult film is a mad combo of violent Yakuza crime film, European New Wave and Film Noir. It commences at a frenzied pace where even the introduction a femme fatale who collects dead birds and butterflies seems perfectly normal - if not, somehow, expected. There are more jump cuts here than in a festival of Godard movies -- not to mention existentialism that rivals Melville.

                  BRANDED TO KILL is no mere homage, however. Suzuki and his team of writers have concocted their own stew. The film was said to have been written and edited quite rapidly, but it does have a certain internal drive if not quite logic. Veteran actor Jo Shishido barges through the proceedings as the main character referred to as “Number 3” (his ranking of local hit-men). Mariko Ogawa gets into the spirit of things as Number 3's sexually crazed wife and Annu Mari is perfect as the alluringly gloomy Misako.

                  The pace, if not the lunacy, is taken down a couple of notches in the second half as Number 3 comes face to face with the mysterious Number 1 (Koji Nanbara). BRANDED TO KILL moves at such a frenetic clip that it sometimes becomes too chaotic for its own good. Suspense has little time to develop and it curtails deep affinity for any of the characters. It's one of those pictures where a character stops to explain everything that's happening. Suzuki does use silence to effectively slow down the tempo.

                  It's best to take Suzuki's film as a sensory experience. Thrillingly so. A film that will leave many breathless asking WTF?! On that score, Suzuki's aim is firmly on target.

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