From the annals of DVDisgo and DVDresurrections


Men Behind The Sun









The ultimate geek show movie or a harsh indictment of Japan's war crimes during the second world war? Maybe it's both but be assured, Men Behind The Sun is one of the harshest, most uncompromising films ever committed to celluloid and then inflicted on an audience.

The film open with some young male adolescents who...

Silver





Takashi Miike is capable of producing some extremely flawed cinema alongside his works of cultish genius like Audition or Full Metal Yakuza. But, even though Silver is among his least effective movies, in Miike world even the lesser work is still mildly entertaining. Drenched in bloodshed and perversity, Miike Amoral visions may have got a little fuzzy with Silver but as a comic book orgy of smutty sexual weirdness and sickening violence it's...

Duel Project




A unique Japanese film experiment, The Duel Project features two movies, both made under strict rules given by the two films producer. The films were to be shot in a single location, feature no more than three actors, one of whose character had to die. The budgets had to be small and a maximum eight days of shooting was allowed.

I've always been intrigued by filmmakers imposing strict criteria on their work; Lars Von Trier's work...

Freezer (Freeze Me)


A particularly sleazy entry in the Asian canon of extreme cinema.

A woman moves away from her small town roots to the big city to escape the memories of a vicious gang rape assault. She builds herself a new life with a good career and a loving boyfriend but the recurring nightmares of that terrible event continue to haunt her.

Years later the members of mob that attacked her come calling but this time she doesn't take things...

Haze





Short claustrophobic horror movie from Shinya Tsukamoto, director of such genre-bending shockers a Tetsuo 1 & 2, Tokyo Fist and the brilliant A Snake Of June. The director himself stars in this strange fever dream of a movie in which a man wakes up locked in a cramped, lightless concrete room in which he can barely move.

Why is he there and where did he come from? We can see that he has a horrific stomach injury and that he is gradually...

Female Yakuza Tale





For fans of other Female lead Japanese exploitation movies like Lady Snowblood or the Female Prisoner Scorpion films, Female Yakuza Tale is going to be a must see. The Japanese made sleazy movies with undeniable style and this film has all the graphic elements that make these movies so good even 30 years after they were first produced.

In this one a women called Ocho is captured by a drug dealing cartel who use Chinese...

Dead or Alive: Final





Apologies: I can only find the trailer with a Spanish narration. Enjoy the visuals. Unless your Spanish that is...


After what seems like an age, Takashi Miike's concluding episode of the Dead or Alive series finallly gots a UK outing on DVD. Tartan released the first two parts during the initial rush to release quirky Japanese extreme cinema, It was a few years before UK fans could get their hands on the concluding...

Visitor Q





Visitor Q was part of a V-Cinema (Japanese "Straight-to-video genre) series on the nature of love


In which the already taboo busting Japanese director of such close to the bone entertainment as Ichi The Killer, Full Metal Yakuza and Imprint decides to try and offend everyone on the face of the earth with a low budget shot on video opus that seeks to scramble your synapses by throwing as much degradation and filth onto...

Full Metal Yakuza





In Full Metal Yakuza, director Takashi Miike, maker of such extreme Japanese movies as Zebraman, Ichi The Killer and One Missed Call, steals the plot from Robocop, as a downtrodden low ranking gangster is transformed into a robot-killing machine by a crazy science guy. Our lowly gangster goes from meek servant to the gang boss, from a natural target for bullies to a super-strong fighting warrior who in one memorable scene in a car...

Republished from my days reviewing for "The Man". As before, these were meant to be viewed individually as people browsed the site, so there's a few repeated points.

Whether my reviews helped to shift any product is another matter...


Tokyo X Erotica





Skirting that fine line between art and pornography, Japanese "Pink Cinema" constantly pushes the boundaries of taste and decency. As an example of this genre, Tokyo...

Hanzo the Razor





Having shelled out top dollar for a pricey import, these three notorious and slightly dubious Japanese exploitation movies are now available in the UK.

These are Katzu productions, the same people who brought us the Lone Wolf & Cub (Shogun Assassin) and Lady Snowblood pictures. Hanzo is a samurai police officer in the Edo period of Japanese history. Unlike his fellow officers however, he is above corruption, which causes...

Female Prisoner No.701 Scorpion - Beast Stable




That's the great thing about Japsploitation... Even the Trailer are a work of art!


The third installment of the Prisoner Scorpion saga sees Sasori, the borderline psychotic heroine of the series, on the run from the authorities in a film that reverses the previous format by having The Scorpion fleeing from the law, only returning to jail for the final act.

This change of pace...

Kureneko




Masterful director Kaneto Shindo created two haunting classics in the late 60s with Onibaba and Kurenko, a pair of films that explored the theme of female vengeance in the Edo era of Japanese history. While both deal with the aftermath of sexual abuse at the hands of wandering Samurai, Kurenko is the more surreal and dreamlike of the two.

Drawing, like so many Japanese 'horror' films of the era, on traditional folklore, in this case...