Earlier in the year I did a few pre-order hauls through Terracotta to get the latest releases on a monthly basis, and that got stalled a fair bit due to delays with various titles so I held off after that. But now I have another one with a few interesting picks from distributors British Film Institute, Radiance Films and Third Window Films.
From BFI we have The Hidden Fortress (隠し砦の三悪人), Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film and the last one to be upgraded to 4K Ultra HD from the Samurai collection as the others were released in the past nine months (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo & Sanjuro, and Throne of Blood). This one is presented with a o-card slipcase, UHD amaray case and a booklet with various notes about the film and specs. As a reminder, this is not a combo pack release which is funny considering most distributors tend to include a Blu-ray version. Now Criterion have recently released High and Low on 4K UHD so I'm curious to see if BFI have any plans to upgrade more Akira Kurosawa films to 4K.
From Radiance Films it's the second Shinobi box set consisting of the franchise's fourth to sixth films; Shinobi: Siege (忍びの者 霧隠才蔵), Tokuzō Tanaka's 1964 film, Shinobi: The Return of Mist Saizo (忍びの者 続・霧隠才蔵), Kazuo Ikehiro's 1964 film, and Shinobi: The Last Iga Spy (忍びの者 伊賀屋敷), Kazuo Mori's 1965 film. Similarly to the first volume we have a rigid slipcase with two scanavo cases, reversible artwork, postcards and a booklet with essays about the films. Apparently another volume may also be in the works to cover the remaining films.
And from Third Window Films we have a new limited edition collection called Takashi Ishii: 4 Tales of Nami that includes four of director Takashi Ishii's works that received restorations in Japan in the past few years. In the set we have 1992's Original Sin (死んでもいい), 1993's A Night in Nude (ヌードの夜), 1994's Angel Guts: Red Flash (天使のはらわた 赤い閃光), and 1994's Alone in the Night (夜がまた来る). The key theme across all four films is one of the character's is named Nami hence the box set's title. Each disc includes various extras like previous Third Window releases and this release is packaged in a digipack with a short essay booklet. While the box set has ordered them by alphabetical order, apparently it's recommended to watch them by release order as there's references to each one from what I read online.