And rounding up this month’s haul are another set of pre-orders that I did through Terracotta to be ahead of the holiday season. We have three releases here and each of them are different for various reasons.
Starting off with Third Window Films’ latest release and a limited edition in fact. This is
Kaizô Hayashi’s Maiku Hama Trilogy which centres on the main lead portrayed by Masatoshi Nagase
(Electric Dragon 80000V). The films included in this release are 1994’s
The Most Terrible Time in My Life (我が人生最悪の時), 1995’s
The Stairway to the Distant Past (遙かな時代の階段を) and 1996’s
The Trap (罠 THE TRAP). Each of these films also feature actors who have reprised their roles throughout including Joe Shishido
(Cruel Gun Story), Haruko Wanibuchi
(House) and Shinya Tsukamoto
(Shin Godzilla).
Each of these films were restored in 4K as part of a 30th anniversary project and much like previous Third Window releases we also have a couple of good extras included with audio commentary, interviews and more. This set also includes a small essay booklet going over the director’s filmography which is great for those unfamiliar with his works.
You can view more photos & specs
on my blog.
Next we have two brand new releases from Arrow Video which are horror focused but from different parts of Asia.
Starting off with Rob Jabbaz’s 2021 film
The Sadness (哭悲) starring Berant Zhu
(Bad Education), Regina Lei
(Twelve), Tzu-Chiang Wang
(My Missing Valentine) and Ying-Ru Chen (Wrath of Desite). This film is unique as it’s another scenario of a foreign director producing a film in Asia with an Asian cast and their language, as Rob Jabbaz is from Canada. A good example of a previous film produced like this was Welsh director Gareth Evans producing
The Raid in Indonesia. US distributor Shudder had the rights which Arrow Video was able to license for the UK & Ireland. I was honestly expecting this film to be too gruesome for the UK but thankfully its uncut. It’s also on the 4K Ultra HD format as well which is very nice.
Next we have a very special release that I had been waiting a very long time to see return to the UK. The
Three/Three Extremes collection are two anthology films from various directors across Asia. This includes 2002’s
Three (三更/쓰리) by Korean director Kim Jee-woon on the segment ‘Memories’, Thai director Nonzee Nimibutr on the segment ‘The Wheel’, and Hong Kong director Peter Chan on the segment ‘Going Home’, and 2004’s
Three… Extremes (三更2/쓰리, 몬스터) by Hong Kong director Fruit Chan on the segment ‘Dumplings’, Korean director Park Chan-wook on the segment ‘Cut’ and Japanese director Takashi Miike on the segment ‘Box’. Tartan Video previously released these films in the UK and I believe they were released in reverse order (the second film came first). Also worth noting that one of the segments ‘Dumplings’ did receive a full theatrical version but that’s not included in this release unfortunately. Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release is a limited edition that includes an o-card slipcase, booklet and poster.
