Tag Archives: Ilan Sheady

You, Me, and EVIL Makes Three on “The Island” reviewed! (Eureka Entertainment / Special Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Island” from Eureka Entertainment and MVD Visual! Order Here!

Geography teacher Mr. Cheung faith in his student’s studies lacks encourage and their grades likely won’t improve.  He decides to take his class on a field trip to an isolated island he once visited more than a decade ago as a young man.  With the intended purpose of relaxation, Mr. Cheung refuses his students of mentioning any schoolwork and studies to try and enjoy the coasting waters and the native nature the island has to offer.  However, there’s more than just animals and plants inhabiting the island as a family of three eccentric brothers welcome them with strange behavior and creepy vibes.  When the younger brother selects one of the student girls as his bride to carrier on their lineage, the once ideal getaway traps Mr. Cheung and his students without a way of escaping the irrational whims and delusions of the three brothers.  With a retrieval boat still a day out, the cornered teacher must keep his party alive at all costs. 

Considered Hong Kong’s answer or version of the backwoods pursuers of cutoff society people, 1985’s “The Island” secludes normal kids and their acquiescent teacher on an island where inbreeding has corrupted the copies of three brothers who’ve recently interred their adamant mother to rest and who’ve been searching for mainland women suitable to be the unsterile youngest’s wife.  Leung Po-Chi, or Po-Chih Leong, director behind “He Lives By Night” and “Hong Kong 1941,” produces a Jekyll-and-Hyde contrasting tale that’s sad and bleak to the core with a script not pinpointed to one particular writer but rather to a creative team within the production company D & B Films, aimed to capitalize on the western grim nature of the deranged and callous upon the unsuspecting and innocent seen in such exploitation and other B-pictures as Hong Kong shifts from the longstanding yet now waning Kung-Fu pictures.  Dickson Poon, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, and John Sham, the founders of D & B Films, produce the film. 

John Sham may not be the ideal looking or sounding hero with a receiving hairline close to Three Stooges’ Larry Fine, thick, round spectacles, and about as average build of a middle-aged man as they come, but for “The Island” the ‘Yes! Madam” actor and D & B Films’s cofounder is suitable and ideal to be the pliantly, run-of-the-mill geography instructor looking to leave the woes of education behind him for a chance to revisit a place from his youth.  Unfortunately, Sham’s inadvertently the head of the snake as everyone remembers the exposed poisonous fangs threateningly elongated from with out the jowls underneath the reptilian beady and glowing eyes.  No one really remembers the slithering body unless there’s a warning rattle connected at the end.  That’s how the rest of the student body reproduces in trying to portray characters to care about but not really achieving the level of sympathy needed to rise about that film of understanding.  One of the more prominent kids is Phyllis, labeled the chunkier one by youngest aggressive, the snotty-simpleton Sam Fat (Billy Sau Yat Ching, “Scared Stiff”) and she’s targeted for Sam Fat’s procreation affections.  Played by Hoi-Lun Au, Phyllis has a working but tiffed relationship with Ronald (Ronald Young, “Sex and Zen III”) and see the untimely death of Ronald sends Phyllis into seeing red, being a formidable survival combatant against the remaining Fat brothers Tai (Lung Chan, “Encounter of the Spooky Kind”) and Yee (Jing Chen, “Riki-Oh:  The Story of Ricky”).  Billy Sau Yat Ching, Lung Chan, and Jing Chen are distinctly diverse to the best possible way, and each deliver their own dish of crazy that gives “The Island” an inescapable locked inside a padded cell substructure all too familiar on its base componentry but alien enough to master a new diverging kind of terror.  Che Ching-Yuen, Chan Lap-Ban (“Hex After Hex”), Kitty Ngan Bo-Yan, Lisa Yeun Lai-Seung, and Timothy Zao (“Diary of the Serial Killer”) costar in the relatively fresh faced and unknown at the time casted film. 

Leung Po-Chi wets our whistle with an opening of an intense forced marriage ceremony involving shuddering sexual exploitation and personal space invasive mistreatment of a mainland young woman, a swimmer who swam her way into trouble with the island’s inhabitants – an elderly mother and her three disturbed sons with the goal of using her for breeding a new bloodline.  This ultimately sets up the tone for a bleaker story that tells of nihilist cruelty with a thematic division between the urban educated and the unsophisticated rural folk, in this case the rural Bumpkins are isolated island inhabitants, but then Leung switches gears with a lighthearted introduction of frolic scurrying teacher and his students as they spread amongst the island’s sandy beaches wearing brilliantly colored skin tight swimsuits and bask in the island’s natural beauty with a couple of them going tangent into their own personal secondary storylines.   Those subplots never vine out and upward to flower fully but there’s enough stem and leafing groundwork between the good old gay times and a few individual internal affairs to setup sympathy for at least a select few as the relationship between visitors and residents quickly sours with Sam-Fat’s eyes growing bigger and bigger and his drool becoming slobbery and slobbery for Phyllis.  There’s not a ton of autonomy for the brothers who do their mother’s bidding long after she expires, committing themselves to the original plan of marrying off Sam-Fat in a show of take and force that robs Mr. Chueng’s dual purpose plan of a good time of fun and nostalgia.  Leung acutely abrupt faces again, back to the cruel inklings from the beginning, that displays unsettling camera shots, dark and low-warmth lighting, and a ferocity that’s always been with the brothers now more evident and growing inside the remaining survives who must fight for each other as well as themselves.  Leung’s style feels very much like a blend between the quick editing and fast action of a martial arts production but has the lighting and chaos-laden horror of an Italian video nasty that does see and lingers onto blood spilled. 

“The Island’s” a terror-riddled getaway that has arrived onto a new Blu-ray from UK label Eureka Entertainment routed through North American distributor MVD Visual.  For the first time on the format outside of Asia and as part of the company’s Masters of Cinema series (#324), Eureka’s Special Edition release is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD50 and presented in the original widescreen aspect ratio 1.85:1.  With a brand new 2K restoration scan, “The Island” has impeccable quality measure that emerges the most minute details in every frame.  Skin tones have inarguable organic quality and a true-to-form reactionary sweat-gleam look induced when the chase is on.  The textures pop through in garb, foliage, and in dilapidated structure that gives certain discernibility and depth of object.  The original print has virtually no wear or tear as well as any aging problems, appearing to be a fresh off the reel transfer with natural appeasing grain.  The original Cantonese mono track is the only track available and is really the only mix we could expect and receive without a remastering, but, in all fairness, the mono works well enough to satisfy dialogue, ambient, and soundtrack integrity in its limited fidelity box  Dialogue is clean and clear on the encoding with no damage or other verbal obstructions but the modulation favors the antiquate characteristics of the era and the paralleling ADR offers little synchronous value, both to not fault of Eureka.  The optional, newly translated English subtitles by Ken Zhang pace well and are in flawless transcription.  The special edition is encoded with a new commentary with East Asian film expert Frank Djeng, a second new commentary by genre connoisseurs Mike Leeder and Arne Venema, a 2023 interview with the director Po-Chih Leong Surviving the Shoot, East Asian film expert Tony Rayns provides an appreciation video essay Tony Rayns on “The Island,” and the film’s trailer.  The limited-edition set comes with a red and yellow pastel colored O-card slipcover with new beaitfully illustrated artwork by horror graphic artist Ilan Sheady, whose supplied extreme and gory “Terrifier” franchise artwork to European media books, and delivers “The Island” a warm glaze of trouble-in-paradise, capturing the essence of what to expect from the story.  Original poster art graces the clear Amaray façade with a sepia image of John Sham from the opening scenes on the reverse side.  The limited set also includes a 19-page color booklet containing photos of “The Island” as well as other Leong productions, cast and crew credits, To Genre and Back:  The Cinema of Po-Chih Leong program notes by Roger Garcia for a strand celebrating Po-Chih Leong at the 2023 Far East Film Festival, an interview with the director conducted by Roger Garcia All Within the Same Film:  An Interview with Po-Chih Leong, and bring up the booklet’s rear are viewing notes and release credits.  The not rated feature has a runtime of 93 minutes and is region A/B locked for playback.

Last Rites: Director Po-Chih Leong’s trip to “The Island” is beyond bleak in social commentary and in of dire situation of nothing but pure innocence being destroyed by those left forgotten on the outskirts of mainlanders and of sanity. Eureka Entertainment’s Blu-ray honors “The Island” with praise upon praise for its slick high-definition picture, solid extras, and beautifully designed O-slipcase and design.

“The Island” from Eureka Entertainment and MVD Visual! Order Here!

Is Your Disturbing Library This EVIL? “Reality Killer” review! (Treasured Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Reality Killers” Entering the U.S. Torture Porn Market! Buy it Here!

Serial killer known as “The Sculptor” narrates his obsession and love with documenting the stalking, capturing, torturing, raping, and killing of his victims.  As he watches and video tapes his next target, Mary, from afar, a woman he’s chatted with online extensively about recording home snuff movies, The Sculptor opens up his personal library of snuff movies, labeled and numbered dark web bought tape cassettes exhibiting the videoed brutal deaths of strangers by strangers for their pure sordid joy of taking another life.  An adventurous couple lure a promiscuous young girl on the promise of a threesome, a group of three masked teens take pleasure in the torture of a young woman, a couple enticement a child to their backyard pool, father and son roam the streets for call girl action and a little home invasion, and an underground, all-female rock band’s music video takes male fans to new extremes.

A title and a film unabashed and fully accepting the phrase torture porn, as if it’s a pithy elucidative to be proud of, “Reality Killers” is a shot-on-video, found footage anthology and snuff horror from 2005 helmed by “Witch Story” director and “Body Count” writer Alessandro Capone.  The Italian production contains shorts and a wraparound story that connects them together in an ugly tale of sadism, written by four aspiring, young filmmakers in Pablo Dammicco (“A Deadly Compromise”), Francesco Maria Dominedò (“Dedalus”), Volfango de Biasi (“Help!  My In-Laws Are Vampires”), and a writer simply known as Zedd with Alessandro Capone also contributing with his own screenplay while project managing filmic newcomers as they shoot mostly in Los Angeles using American actors.  Alternatively known under the title of “Project K,” the 2005 film of nihilistic sadism is produced by Eagles Pictures’ Ciro Dammicco and Pablo Dammicco and executively produced by Luca Dammicco and Fabrizio Manzollino.

“Reality Killers” is one of those rare breed films that shares a connection with pictures 70+ years it’s senior with having no after credits.  With no before or after cast credits, acknowledging the cast and their ignoble roles is a challenge to say the least.  If fact, it’s impossible.  The wraparound segment with The Sculptor has some clarifying character elucidation online connected to one of the more well-known Italian extreme violence and horror filmmakers in modern times with Domiziano Cristopharo, director of the surrealistic yet broad-stroked with intense visceral “Confessions of a Necrophile Girl” and “House of Flesh Mannequins,” in a role credited as The Monk.  However, there seems to be some melding overlap between The Monk and the large, oiled-up, and masked concentrated sadist on screen in the wraparound story, played by Valter D’Errico, in a disturbing show of vain and perverse expression.  Alongside D’Errico, in a handful of scenes of being stalked around a metropolitan city and in a naked position of vulnerability on D’Errico’s slab of slaughter, is Cristina Puccinelli (“Phantasmagoria”) playing as the aspiring snuffer enthusiast and killer as well as the online conversationalist Mary who turns prey to her own betrayal going against and essentially humiliating a masterclass maniac like the oily and masked maniac.  After that and within the shorts, none of the other actors are repeated or credited for their work that waver between being exaggeratedly overacted and staged to the point of disingenuous means and the thought of the inflicted violence that spur a subtle creepiness.

The trouble with “Reality Killers” is the inherent topsy-turvy post-production that revamped the anthological storyline with a linear outer story with an anthological storyline connected with a threadbare connected wraparound.  Initially story structured with a sheriff unearthing a library of snuff films and going through selected VHS examples of the killer’s cache with a journalist to explicate the rare breed of butcher.  The videos were also lengthier, more narratively in depth of character and plotline, and have digestible connective tissue with the main shell story that’s redesigned for a body round and glistening, conventionally narcissistic, masked chatterbox, “The Sculptor,” who’s just a physical and commanding orb of a presence in a dark and grimy setting, spouting a deluge of devilish details about his devotion to snuff filmmaking and his own contribution to the perversion.  The told tales vary in degree of both explicit violence as well as story structure as some become more glimpses than a perusal of a three act analog anecdotes to which, in all fairness, found footage, especially pulled from VHS, are only short-lived windows into the lives of others, literally short-lived.  The vignettes are mostly hyper concentrated on the gore, leaving little room for a yard to build, lengthen, and become deeper to invest audiences when the decisive moment comes to take a life with sociopathic heartlessness.  However, “Reality Killers” pales in comparison to the likes of others, such as Fred Vogel’s “August Underground” features that really hammer down on violence and gore with sickening special effects and concentrated shock.  Capone’s entry into the niche subgenre feels reversed at times, never really going for gold in the gutting of precious human life, but the film still evokes a visceral response to the extreme content. 

“Reality Killers” arrives into the U.S. market hailing from the UK label Treasured Films, squeezing itself into the ever tightening commerce of boutique distributors.  Treasured Films’ debut special edition Blu-ray is MPEG-2 AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD50 is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and either scanned through a VHS record or implements a VHS or commercial handheld camera filer to achieve that passé effect that’s slowly making an aesthetic comeback.  There’s not a ton of other stylistic options used in the vignettes to instill a realism effect and result while the wraparound ups the contrast and grades darkly into its grim substance, leaving attenuated tones of yellows, greens, and reds to be coloring that seep through the oily voids.  The featured presentation carries more of the filtered aspects but in the special features’ Original Production Scenes, the alternate telling of “Reality Killers” embarks on a cleaner, conventional approach in the different outer story with the vignettes either slightly less boxed in by a matte or are outright more defined.  The audio track is an English DTS-HD stereo.  Though an Italian production, the vignette actors are primarily American and the wraparound story is voiced over.  Dialogue coincides with an onboard camera mic that picks up every little detail but also captures varying degrees of volume.  Discerning clarity is, must I say, pretty excellent for the differing sub-productions without an overbearing lopsidedness that usually stems with some who don’t have the technical knowhow to engineer audio precision; each episode achieves what’s strived for without interference, or even with the physical release, compression issues.  English subtitles are available.  Special features include a new interview with director-producer Alessandro Capone From Witch Lore to Snuff Gore in Italian only with English subtitles, a new interview with coproducer Gabriele Pacitto A Killing Reality in Italian only with English subtitles, a new English language essay by Giacomo Calzoni Cutting Deep :  Mapping the Origin of Torture Porn which takes a look at films like “Saw” and “Hostel” that generated the coining of descriptor torture porn and how it influenced horror pop culture, a teaser trailer, storyboards, and an image gallery.  The Original Production Scenes I’ve mentioned previously tells a completely different story and, in my opinion, is more interesting with longer story sequences, more nudity and gore, and the first vignette is scored with music from Nine Inch Nails, specifically “Dead Souls” from The Crow soundtrack, which adds another element to the coarse-riddled subject matter.  Treasured Films standard special edition set comes in a rigid slip box with a hazed face of the masked Sculptor.  The clear Amaray case houses new Ilan Sheady illustrative, compilation cover art in all its explicit detail with the same art pressed onto the disc.  Inserted is a 31-page color booklet with film stills, Blu-ray acknowledgments, and a David Flint essay “The Forbidden Films of the 21st Century” that discusses the films banned in Britian, which includes “Reality Killers’ rejected by the BBFC.  The all-region release has a runtime of 75-minuts and is, obviously, not rated.

Last Rites: Torture porn snuff films are, for a lack of a better world, repetitive in their controversial narrative and “Reality Killers” is no exception but it’s the style choices that and effects that entertain us or makes the sweat run down our brow. Alessandro Capone’s entry to torture porn has a visceral bite but isn’t the repulsive best-of-the-worst. Yet, Treasured Films’ entry into U.S. market is remarkably unforgettable.

“Reality Killers” Entering the U.S. Torture Porn Market! Buy it Here!

The Empire of EVIL Reduced to Prostitution, Corruption, and a Wasteland. “Gate of Flesh” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

88 Films’ “Gate of Flesh” Now Available in the U.S.!

The American occupation of Japan post-World War II was the result of not only the Iwo Jima atomic bomb but also the relentless destruction of carpet-bombing Tokyo.  Left in near ruins and swarming with the presence of American soldiers, the Japanese people have disseminated into gangs and territories for financial gains and power.  For Kanto Komasa, she and her gang of highly motivated women prostitute themselves for sex-starved American soldiers to accure money for Paradise, the future name of their bomb-ruined, leftover-skeletal building structure revamped into an elegant dance hall where they run the show.  When a rival male gang threatens their business, another all-woman gang challenges them, an inducted outsider betrays them, and a bloodied stranger is found inside their bombed out homebase, all with the Americans military police continuously rounding up prostitutes nightly, Komasa and her gang must walk the paved road through Hell to scratch and claw toward Paradise, even if that means going against their set principles.

Since the end of the World War II Pacific campaign, Japanese novelist Taijirô Tamura’s “Gate of Flesh” has been filmically adapted a handful of times just after the war in 1947.  In 1948, directors Masahir Makino and Ozaki Masafusa first adapted the novel, followed by the Seijun Suzuki version in 1964 and Shōgorō Nishimura’s adaptation in 1977.  In this review, Hideo Gosha’s “Gate of Flesh,” also known as “Carmen 1945,” moves from samurai period actioners, such as “Sword of the Beast,” “Three Outlaw Samurai,” and “Samurai Wolf,” and into a yakuza era of storytelling that came on strong in the 1980s.  “Gate of Flesh” is no different with plenty of yakuza tropes without actually affirming the term in the dialogue.  Gosha’s tale provides more glamour, style, and substance, especially around themes of inner turmoil under outsider control and the divine praise for an enemy-built weapon of destruction, from a screenplay by prolific writer Kazuo Kasahara of “Hiroshima Death Machine” and “Yakuza Graveyard.”  The Toei Company production is produced by Shigeru Okada (“Inferno of Torture”).

“Gate of Flesh” has the interweaving stories of an ensemble with the various faceted chess piece pawns aimed to promote themselves, by cutthroat and sordid means, to a higher degree of social status and wealth improvement like queens and kings within a crummy economical and degraded societal Tokyo commune of prostitution, gambling, and survival.  There are also a few other pieces stealthier knighted behind enemy lines with more noble goals in mind.  While different storylines unfold and merge, Kanto Komasa becomes the generally sensed centerpiece, played by Rino Katase of previously directed Gosha films, “Yakuza Ladies” and “Tokyo Bordello.”  Her preparedness to take on the “Gate of Flesh” role as the female-led gang leader promising Paradise has been success before of her previous performances in Gosha’s films that contain similar traits but Katase delivers a powerhouse, immensely conflicted, act as Komasa’s hopes and dreams to dig herself out of poverty and into high-class are thwarted by deceptive ranks, a haunting past, and, of course, the more present occupation troubles of inner city gang-on-gang wardom, battling advances, negotiates, and the potential for mediation between fellow gang leaders Yoshio Hakamada (Jinpachi Nezu, “Ran”), who wants her building that’ll be lucrative in the future, and Rakucho no Osumi (Yūko Natori, “Stranger”).  Of course, there’s more to bereft Komasa’s mind with the sudden wounded appearance and peculiarity familiarity of stranger Shintaro Ibuki (Tsunehiko Watase, “The Rapacious Jailbreaker”) who has protective parallelism with the 2-ton bomb that also acts as a rival gang repellant and an explosive safety net for Komasa.  Secondary characters provide a layered depth to Hideo Gosha’s charismatic and gender-battling narrative with Miyuki Kanō, Yūko Natori, Senri Yamazaki, Shinsuke Ashida, Naomi Hase, Chie Matsuoka, and Yoshimi Ashikawa.

Surreal like a dystopian science-fiction and wasteland thriller, “Gate of Flesh” has that otherworldly, alternate reality appeal accentuated by Hideo Gosha’s colorfully grim realism that doesn’t convey truth or fact.  In fact, “Gate of Flesh” is very much rooted in reality, truth, and fact in regard to U.S. occupation of Japan after the country’s surrender between 1945 and 1952.  This drops a non-fictionalized period as “Gate of Flesh’s” backlot, corroded by the illicit prostitution that spread to satisfy and bank off allied forces.  Gosha’s film is a game of wits amongst crooks and connivers while the developing sympathy envelopes around the seemingly tough of nails Kanto Kamase with a violin-pining and sympathetic backstory colliding with the injured Colt Shin aka Shintaro Ibuki.  Ibuki himself has history, or perhaps even beef history, with the iron rule of Hakamada, but through thick and thin, Ibuki’s clearly maneuvering the chess board around protecting Kamase for clued in reasons only to be precisely unveiled near the end.  The American presence doesn’t even feel weighty, reduced to hooker johns, voiceless military police, and a one uncouthly boisterous and unpleasant Sergeant to become the poster boy from Japan’s perspective of the occupational paradigm. Other than that, the U.S. forces are background noise, a sidestepped component of a much bigger, domestic ordeal amongst the Japanese people but are still the cause of so much heartache, gangsterism, and civil war.  Sex is also a huge theme as strictly a monetary activity rather than a joyful expression of romance and liberating relief from oppression, which there is none from U.S. forces.  Kazuo Kasahara’s script skirts around the inkling of affection between two people as much of everything else is for ostentatious and desperation means in a time when there was not much else to hold onto in Tokyo after suffering defeat, aside from ruined property, cash for hope, and tattoos to honor the past. 

88 Films proudly presents “Gate of Flesh” from their UK catalogue to their quickly growing US list of titles.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is the first home video release for the rest of the world outside of Japan with a limited-edition release, presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen.  Hideo Gosha’s style brilliance flourishes with this impeccably detailed and graded release that pedestals a rich and sustaining color palette.  The stabilization of color extends to the details as textures pop from the screen, especially in Kamase’s gang where each one has a distinct color flair and different pattern design to have them stand out amongst each other in a story that’s greatly character-individualized aware and often tangents into side characters to be worked into the parent plot.  No compression issues to note, day and night transitions have equal clarity and depth, and the Gosha and Yuko Morita’s aesthetic brings the stylistic aspects to the forefront without taking away from the schemes of skin tones and milieu details in the set design of a tumbledown Tokyo.  The Japanese LPCM 2.0 Mono mix diffuses perfectly into the single channel fold and aligns well with the picture, casting synchronous UK English optional subtitles that only had a single misspelling that I had caught.  “Gate of Flesh” has plenty of range and depth captured precisely on this 88 Films release that doesn’t show signs of audio layer wear or any compression issues.  The summiting explosion capitalizes the full potential of the mix with a story grand exit designed to be immersive as possible in its limited capacity through an assistant of visual means.  The special features include an audio commentary by film critics and analysts Amber T and Jasper Sharp, critic Earl Jackson provides an introduction on the many adaptations of Taijiro Tamura’s “Gate of Flesh” with timelines, history, and his own preference accompanied by stills, posters, and video clips, an exclusive interview with tattoo artist Seiji Mouri Flesh & Blood Tattoos who doesn’t view the Gosha’s work as a yakuza-spiced, and rounds out the content with a still gallery and a pair of trailers.  The limited-edition and numbered set, that includes an Obi strip over top a commissioned illustrative composition covert art by Ilan Sheady and housed in a clear Scanova case, contains a 23-page booklet with color photos and posters and essay notes by Robin Gatto and Irene González-López.  The cover art has a reversible side with the original Japanese poster.  Only playable in region A and B, the not rated 88 Films disc comes not rated and with a 119 runtime.

Last Rites: “Gate of Flesh” bears the weight of Taijiro Tamura’s prostitution-laden tale of survival, revenge, and hope with Hideo Gosha’s cinematic eye that captures the beauty and indomitability in the badlands of the occupied proud.

88 Films’ “Gate of Flesh” Now Available in the U.S.!

Pinksploitation EVIL is Transgressional Passion! “Love and Crime” reviewed! (88 Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Limited Edition and Numbered Blu-ray / DVD Set Available at Amazon!

The dead body of a young woman arrives at pathology for post-mortem autopsy.  A victim of a heinous crime, the bare corpse already informs the head pathologist of sexual activity before, or after, death because of the fresh semen that’s inside her.  As he toils over her to open the chest, separate the ribs, and get a good look inside to see how and why she perished, the pathologist remains in disbelief that the semen inside her, inside his lifeless wife before him on the cold medical table and under the bright lights, is not his own.  Digging deeper into how someone could kill his beloved wife, the researcher in him hits the books, selecting and scouring through records of similar cases of murderers and rapists from over the years.  Each one under different circumstances concludes in a sentence that reflects the person they have become.  Inside the mind of a killer is a long hard look at ourselves in how far we go for treasure, love, and to quench our insanity. 

“Love and Crime,” or officially known under the Japanese title as “Meiji Taishô Shôwa: Ryôki onna hanzai-shi” aka “Showa Era:  History of Bizarre Female Crimes,” is the Japanese anthology from 1969 that pictorializes true crime narratives of mostly women transgressors, as the title suggests.  Yet, the Teruo Ishii helmed anthology is not entirely female perpetrator centric as the anthology jumps ship briefly to explore crimes against female victims for a crossover, comparative distinction.  Ishii, who played his hand in producing late 1960s sexploitation and violence by directing films in Toei Company’s pinku series that showcased the two subcategories, such as “Orgies of Edo,” “Shogun’s Joy of Torture,” “Inferno of Torture, and among many other titles with similar salaciousness, was thrust into “Love and Crime’s” consolidating short film escapade with a wraparound monologuing narrative that was just as intriguing as the sordid stories themselves.  Shigenu Okada produces “Love and Crime” as well as many of the films aforementioned.

Yoshida Teruo kicks off the wraparound with a mater-of-fact narration running through the head of Murase, the anatomist examining his dead wife’s corpse (Ritsuko Nakamura), in what would be the grisliest part of the anthology, especially when that chest snaps during separation.  Having worked with Ishii previously with “Abashiri Bangaichi,” a crime thriller about a reminiscing criminal aimed to reform himself, Teruo only worked a short stint with the Toei Company but his time spent on such films like “Crime and Love” discerns a piece of the dramatic devotion that would be otherwise missing in these purely exploitative films.  As Marase puts nose to book, he unearths and internally narrates the start of his true crime story journey research, beginning with the cut-throating scheme of the Toyokaku Inn case.  Chiyo (Aoi Mitsuko, “Melancholy Flesh Business:  Sensuous Zone”) and Kosuke (Kenjire Ishiyama, “Kwaiden”) own and run the humble Toyokaku Inn but when Chiyo seeks to changes businesses and cut ties with her philandering husband Kusuke, a treacherous and murderous plot against her is formed between Kusuke, spearheaded by assistant manager Kinue Munekata (Rika Fujie, “Outlaw:  Heartless”), and executed by maintenance man Shibuya (Takashi Fujiki, “Shin Godzlilla”).  From there, the film transitions to other female intertwined crime tales of Sada Abe, a woman who would kill her lover because of love and insistence during alternative sex, the case of Kunihiko Kodaire, a serial rapist and murderer spilling tricks of his trade to authorities, and the last known female murderer executed by katana beheading, Takahashi Oden, for poisoning her husband.  Each performance plays into the intricate patterns described by their true life counterparts with either a chilling contentment in taking a life or hurdling the obstacles inward to do the unpleasantries of what is asked of them  Circumstantial opportunities and conniving plots bury bodies six-feet under in a multifacted range of expression, greed, lust, and all the other deadly sins that plague mortals right to the very end.  “Crime and Love” fill out the pinksploitation anthology with Yukie Kagawa (“Female Prisoner Scorpion:  Jailhouse 41”), Eiji Wakasug (“Inferno of Torture”), Tomoo Koike, Tatsumi Hijikata (“Orgies of Edo”), Yumi Teruko (“Horrors of Malformed Men”), and a special appearance by the actual, reclusive, convicted murderer Abe Sada herself, shot from a distance while being interviewed by Yoshida Teruo.

As anthologies go, especially one rare as true-life crime and love, or in this case sexploitation,” “Love and Crime” has an unsystematic design when it comes to the stories and how they relate to the wraparound narrative.  For starters, not all the bizarre crimes are female centric.  The story of Kodaire revolves about a male serial rapist and murderer divulging his collected anecdotes to investigating confessors and are depicted in monochromatic flashback, the same as his present yarn telling scenes.  Though the case involves multiple women victims, Kodaire greatly stands out amongst the compilation of crimes for the very fact he is a man in an anthology literally entitled History of “Bizarre Female Crimes.”  Was the case of Kordaire a gap filler? Perhaps the uniquity of Japanese serial killers is so low and rare in their culture and history that this particular short story had enough estrogenic blood spilled it avoided the short list cut.  Each story’s relationship toward the wraparound is also thin as neither story suggests a same or remotely similar pattern to death of Maruse’s wife in what is more of a random-generator selection of stories read and worked through for better understanding of the killer female psyche rather than what makes the male killer tick to hit-and-run his wife.

“Love and Crime” is 88 Films’ answer to opening the door of the wonderfully violent and sexually charged world of pinksploitation.  A limited edition and numbered dual-format, AVC encoded, 1080p, 50-gigabye Blu-ray and standard definition, MPEG encoded, dual-layered DVD, set presents the 1969 film in the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.  With various stylistic color grading outfits, such as grayscale image for the Kadaire case story or the last case of Takahashi Oden that’s starkly cold rooted in blue and green.  There’s not a lot of mention of what kind of work went into restoration but the print has kept in excellent condition with age or damage wear kept to a minimum with nominal vertical scratching and dust speckling.  Colors appear to be handled with true reproduction of the dyed processing, rich and bold leaves no room of ambiguity of image or object representation.  Skin tones appear natural that do flirt a lighter shade of orange at times, textures are coarse and greatly apparent, even in the black-and-white story, and there’s tremendous environment or background distinction that creates an organic depth between character and their setting rather than them being crushed into an all-in-one image.  The encoded audio is the original Japanese language LPCM mono 2.0 that captures the soothing project whir during post ADR.  Dialogue retains prominence with a clean enough clarity albeit some negligible hissing sporadic throughout.  Ambience is not as enlivened within what’s mostly an isolated dialogue mix but is there to complement to composition when necessary, such as the blustery snowfall during the execution that sets a tumultuous tone of desperation and severity.  The improved English subtitles are timely synched and error-free.  Special features include an audio commentary by the 88 Film’s Japanarchy release fire starter and Midnight Eye’s co-editor Jasper Sharp and Fangoria staff writer Amber T., a brand-new film introduction and conversation by film critic and journalist Mark Schilling, a still gallery, and trailer. The Obi-striped 88 Films packaging has a very familiar feel to what Radiance Films, another boutique UK label, is doing with their Blu-ray releases nowadays and “Love and Crime” could be confused for a Radiance resemblance, but clear UK Amary has a gorgeous, commissioned, newly designed artwork from Ilan Sheady that brings all the sordid shades of this anthology to life. The cover art is also reviersible with the original Japanese one-sheet. Inside, the Blu-ray and DVD overlap in a dual-disc lock system on the right while the left stashes 15-page black-and-white-and-colored pictured adorned essay by Nathan Stuart prologued with cast, crew, and release acknowledgments and bounded by the same Sheady artwork without the Obi strip obstruction. 88 Films release comes both in region A and B playback, is not rated, and has a runtime of 92-minutes.

Last Rites: “Love and Crime” will be a love-it or hate-it anthology of early pink violence and sexual discordance because of its broad stroke theme but the 88 Films’ limited edition, Japanarchy debut is an exciting and eager look toward the future of the label’s dive into Japan’s exploitational cinema.

Limited Edition and Numbered Blu-ray / DVD Set Available at Amazon!