Arrow Video In September Will Offbeat And Epic
An extraordinary 80s-style actioner and a magnum opus from Japan
We maybe praying for better weather over at Arrow Video’s they are looking ahead and September line up will be ‘offbeat and epic‘. With Blu-ray releases of the award-winning coming-of-age tale like no other, and an unmissable three-hour Japanese epic.
First in September, from acclaimed Indonesian director Edwin (Postcards from the Zoo) and based on the novel by Eka Kurniawan, comes Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, winner of the Golden Leopard at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival – a pulpy, energetic throwback to 80s South East Asian action and coming-of-age cinema about a young man who can’t get it up. With echoes of early Takashi Miike, Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is a wild and unexpectedly poignant meditation on toxic masculinity and a culture steeped in violence from one of Indonesia’s most exciting directorial voices.
Also this month, considered the magnum opus of the five decades-long career of Tomu Uchida (Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji, The Mad Fox), the epic crime drama A Fugitive from the Past was voted third in the prestigious Kinema Junpo magazine’s 1999 poll of the Top Japanese Films of the 20th Century. Making its home video debut outside of Japan, this adaptation of Tsutomu Minakami’s 1700-page novel is a landmark in master director Uchida’s oeuvre. Its gritty monochrome photography has the immediacy of newsreel as Uchida uses the landscapes of postwar Japan to explore the massive social upheaval and unspoken legacies of the war, and create an unsettling karmic allegory of a man’s struggle to escape his past sins. The Special Edition Blu-ray presents a High Definition presentation of the restored 183 minute-long cut of the film.
Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash 19th September
Ajo Kawir (Marthino Lio) is a fighter who fears nothing, not even death. But his raging urge to fight is driven by a secret – his impotence, resulting from a traumatic childhood memory. When he crosses paths with a tough female fighter named Iteung (Ladya Cheryl), Ajo gets beaten black and blue, but he also falls head over heels in love. Will Ajo’s path lead him to a happy life with Iteung, and, eventually, his own peace of mind?
A Fugitive From the Past 26th September
In 1947, a freak typhoon sends a passenger ferry running between Hokkaido and mainland Japan plunging to the ocean depths, with hundreds of lives lost. During the chaos, three men are witnessed fleeing a burning pawnshop in the Hokkaido port town of Iwanai. The police suspect theft and arson, and when Detective Yumisaka (Junzaburo Ban) discovers the burned remains of a boat and the corpses of two men, he sets about tracking the shadowy third figure. Meanwhile, the mysterious Takichi Inukai (Rentaro Mikuni) takes shelter with a prostitute, Yae (Sachiko Hidari), a brief encounter that will come to define both of their lives. A decade later, long after the trail has gone cold, Yumisaka is called back by his successor Detective Ajimura (Ken Takakura) as two new dead bodies are found.
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