Hong Kong's IVL continues their excavation of Kadokawa Pictures vaults with a trio of brand new releases hitting shelves right about now: Murakawa Toru's The Beast to Die, Sato Junya's Never Give Up, and - hurray! - Fukasaku Kinji's mid-eighties sword and sorcery picture, with action choreography - and a role played by - Sonny Chiba The Legend of Eight Samurai!
Fukasaku, of course, is best known for his yakuza films of the seventies and his stunning Battle Royale but his prolific pulpy sci-fi and fantasy efforts of the mid-eighties have been largely overlooked and this is widely regarded as one of his best from that era. It has been available before on DVD but the editions have been hit and miss and these IVL reissues are not only a very inexpensive option but the remasters have all been excellent so far and the films are all being presented in their original, uncut form. So jump on it. And, someone, The Green Slime? Please?
Order The Legend of Eight Samurai
Order Never Give Up
Order Beast To Die
there's a 'beast to die' trailer on youtube :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6efXrWErXho
it's the only one of the three that's interesting to me... the fukasaku one has already appeared under a different title (not sure about the cut of the film) in the USA thanks to adness. still, muddy brown covers meant you couldn't tell one from the other very easily.
with regards other IVL discs, the transfers are largely functional (from those i've seen), but i did think the previous months 'sailor suit and machine gun' was mighty. a great teen drama that's different because of the central clash with an adult world - worth seeing at these prices.
I've also been pretty happy with all the IVL Kadokawa releases thus far and definitely look forward to the next batch although I'm still not sure what happened to "Nerawareta Gakuen/School in the Crosshairs". I agree with Logboy that "Sailor Fuku To Kikanjyu/Sailor Suit & Machine Gun" is the best one thus far although "Tokikake/Girl Who Conquered Time" wasn't that bad either.
Shop at our affiliated sites and support Twitch while feeding your pop-culture addiction.
|