Kisapmata

Details

This special limited edition slipcover (designed by Luke Insect) is limited to 1,000 units and is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them.

Named after Yasujiro Ozu’s custom-made, tatami-level, crab-like tripod, Kani is a new home video label dedicated to leveling the gaze and furthering the understanding of Asian cinema in North America. Focused on genre-defying films, Kani aims to expand the canon, bolster up-and-coming filmmakers and reintroduce repertory classics in context. Vinegar Syndrome’s sister company, OCN Distribution, is thrilled to be representing this diverse and unique home video line!

One Sunday in November, Mila (Charo Santos) announces to her father Dadang (Vic Silayan), a retired police officer, that she is pregnant, asking for permission to marry her co-worker Noel (Jay Ilangan). The noose further tightens as Dadong's unreasonable expectations for a dowry are not met and he exhibits an increasingly authoritarian streak. The couple marries and soon, Mila's father begins a game of exclusion and manipulation in the hopes of reasserting control over his kin.

Based on the true crime reportage "The House on Zapote Street" penned by Nick Joaquin, Mike De Leon's Kisapmata, beautifully restored in 4K by L'Immagine Ritrovata, is a stunning example of psychological horror; a film that meticulously tighten the noose around its characters' neck until the outcome feels inevitable — culminating in a brutal, unflinching portrait of the horrors of patriarchy at its most pathological. Voted the 3rd Best Filipino Film Of All Time by the Pinoy Rebyu (SFFR), it stands as one of Mike De Leon's most unsettling and politically resonant films.

directed by: Mike De Leon
starring: Charo Santos, Jay Ilagan, Vic Silayan, Charito Solis
1981 / 99 min / 1.85:1 / Tagalog DTS-HD MA 2.0

Additional info:

• Region A Blu-ray
• 4K Restoration
• Introduction & Selected Scenes Commentary by director Isabel Sandoval
• Introduction by director Raymond Red
• Interview with actor & line producer Charo Santos
• Interview with screenwriter Raquel Villavicencio
• Interview with screewriter Clodualdo "Doy" Del Mundo Jr.
• Vic Silayan: An Actor Remembers (Manny Reyes, 1985)
• 8mm behind-the-scenes footage
• Booklet with archival set photographs & writing
• English subtitles