Details
This listing is for the standard edition Blu-ray. The limited edition slipcover (designed by Tony Stella) was limited to 2,000 units and is sold out. The two versions are identical, aside from the slipcover.
Founded in 2002 as one of the first-ever subscription film services with its DVD-of-the-Month Film Club, Film Movement is now a North American distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films based in New York City. In 2015, Film Movement launched the reissue label Film Movement Classics featuring new restorations released theatrically as well as on home video, with an emphasis on films by auteur directors such as Eric Rohmer, Peter Greenaway and Takeshi Kitano.
This thrilling two-disc set features a double dose of hyperbolic heist movie mayhem directed by the great Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Battle Royale), restored to HD, and, for the first time ever, available on Blu Ray in North America.
Fukasaku's 1964 breakthrough Wolves, Pigs and Men finds three brothers pitted against each other as rivals in the Yakuza underworld. Jiro, alongside his girlfriend Mizuhara, devises a scheme to rob his younger brother Sabu's gang. However, when the eldest brother Kuroki learns of this, he seeks to conspire against them to take it all for himself in a treacherous nightmare of unbridled violence.
While lesser known, 1976’s Violent Panic: The Big Crash wreaks havoc across the streets of Japan with stylishly nihilistic aplomb. After expert bank-robber Takashi's big job is foiled, he goes on the lam. Trailed by the police, his lover, his partner-in-crime’s brother, and countless others, Takashi becomes the target of a manhunt filled with twists, double-crosses, and explosive action that gives the 70’s car chase genre a run for its money.
directed by: Kinji Fukasaku
starring: Tsunehiko Watase, Miki Sugimoto, Yayoi Watanabe, Ken Takakura, Rentarô Mikuni, Kin'ya Kitaôji
1964, 1976 / 174 min (combined) / 2.39:1 / Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1, 2.0
Additional info:
- Region A 2-disc Blu-ray
- 16 page booklet with New essay by film critic Kenji Fujishima
- Wolves, Pigs and Men:
- Audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp
- Interview with Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane
- Interview with co-screenwriter Junya Sato
- Interview with Producer Tatsu Yoshida
- Violent Panic: The Big Crash:
- Audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp
- Fast, Furious, Fukasaku video essay by Tokyoscope author Patrick Macias
- Audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp
- English subtitles