Third Window Films

[Calvin]

Impressive lineup. Is Director’s Company a new line for them?

That's my understanding, though I'm not sure how many more there will be as the Director's Company didn't produce *that* many films and I think the distribution rights for some are still tied up with the bigger studios.

I asked Adam about the earlier Kurosawas and he said that he was thinking about "The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Girl, but to be honest, it's not really that good...
Will focus on more of the higher profile and better Director's Company films first!"

[dadaistnun]

The Guard from Underground and Door (and presumably Typhoon Club as well; I'm waiting for the Cinema Guild release) have liner notes from Jasper Sharp giving a brief history of the Director's Company. The concluding passage states:

Since its collapse, many of the Director's Company's productions had remained in a rights limbo and the whereabouts of their original elements unknown, but in 2021 an ex-producer of the Director's Company named Takashi Ikoma discovered a large amount of long-lost negatives of Director's Company films, cleared the rights, remastered them and made them available for us all to watch today in high definition.

No indication of which films those might be, but here is a (complete?) list of titles that emerged from the company included in the notes:

Wolf: Running is Sex (Banmei Takahashi, 1982)
Farewell Love: Rock is Sex (Ryudo Uzaki, 1982)
Harlem Valentine Day: Blood is Sex (Shigeru Izumiya, 1982)
Kandagawa Pervert Wars (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1983)
Mermaid's Legend (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1984)
Crazy Family (Sogo Ishii, 1984)
Love Hotel (Shinji Somai, 1985)
Typhoon Club (Shinji Somai, 1985)
Bumpkin Soup (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1985) (Sharp uses the The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl title in his notes)
Scent of a Spell (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1985)
Inujini Seshi Mono (Kazuyuki Izutsu, 1986)
Halber Mensch (Sogo Ishii, 1986)
House of Wedlock (Kichitaro Negishi, 1986)
Luminous Woman (Shinji Somai, 1987)
Half of Eternity (Kichitaro Negishi, 1987)
Door (Banmei Takahashi, 1988)
Evil Dead Trap (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1988)
Yojo no jidai (Shunichi Nagasaki, 1988)
Dangerous Stories (Kazuyuki Izutsu, Banmei Takahashi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1989)
Tokyo Heaven (Shinji Somai, 1990)
Maria's Stomach (Hideyuki Hirayama, 1990)
Popcorn Love (Hironari Yano & Takeo Moriyasu, 1990)
Mo no Shigoto (Takumi Kimizuka, 1991)
Manatsu no Chikyu (Osamu Murakami, 1991)
Kaze, Slow Down (Shinsuke Shimada, 1991)
Misty(Toshiharu Ikeda, 1991)
Travels in the Orient (Kazuyuki Izutsu, 1992)
The Guard From Underground (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1992)

[Finch]

The Crazy Family (1984) got certified by the BBFC for home video release, and TWF handled all previous recent Sogo Ishii titles so it's quite likely coming from them (or Arrow).

[Adam X]

I just listened to a recent TWF podcast episode where it was mentioned work was being done to clear this for a release in relation to their Director's Company series, so I'm glad this has come to fruition (Third Window are listed as the distributor).

[colinr0380]

Shamelessly cribbing all of the details from Neo magazine relating to Third Window releases: back on 12th February they released River on Blu-ray, which is the most recent (2023) film from the writer and director duo behind Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes. Also released this month is Mad Cats. And One Percenter is due for release on 11th March. The Crazy Family is coming "in Spring".

In their "live action preview" section Neo mentions two further Shinji Somai films are coming: 1987's Luminous Woman "at the end of April", and 1985's Love Hotel (with a script from Angel Guts creator Takashi Ishii!) "at the end of June". Plus Shinya Tsukamoto's latest feature, Shadow of Fire, is going to be "screened in cinemas around the UK as part of the Japan Foundation touring programme, which runs from February to April, before coming to Blu-ray and digital in September".

[Calvin]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Bumpkin Soup (aka The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl) will also be coming from Third Window as part of the Directors' Company line

[Finch]

More Director's Company films from TWF: Luminous Woman, Love Hotel and The Crazy Family



This strange work from Shinji Somai (Typhoon Club) is presented with a brand new 2K restoration from the original negatives

A burly hulk of a man (pro-wrestler Keiji Muto) makes his way from Hokkaido to the decrepit trash heaps of outer Tokyo in a quest to find his beloved fiance, but meets a nightclub diva who has lost the ability to sing. When he finds himself pulled into the gladiator pits of a Tokyo nightclub, the mountain man agrees to fight in exchange for information on his lost love, yet also finds himself drawn to the various pulls of the big city.

BLU-RAY CONTENTS
• New 2k remaster from the original negatives
• Making Of (50 minutes)
• Deleted Scenes (50 minutes)
• Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp - limited to 2000 copies



After mainstream success, Shinji Somai (Typhoon Club) returned to his Nikkatsu roots for this mournful Roman Porno scripted by Takashi Ishii (writer of Evil Dead Trap and director of Gonin). After Tetsuro loses his business, the yakuza collect his debt in the most violent, shocking way imaginable. Honorably, he divorces his wife and becomes a taxi driver. Existing bereft of meaning or support, he eventually encounters Nami, a part-time prostitute who has undergone similar tribulations. An existential study of two lonely and tortured souls, Somai’s melancholic roman porno follows the pair as they kindle a newfound friendship amid the chaos of their broken and dispirited lives.

BLU-RAY CONTENTS

• Feature length audio commentary by Jasper Sharp
• Shinji Somai at the Director’s Company: Video essay by Josh Slater-Williams
• Archival interview with actor Minori Terada and assistant director Koji Enokido
• Original Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp - limited to 2000 copies



From the director of Electric Dragon 80000v, Crazy Thunder Road and Burst City

The Kobayashi family finally are able to move out of their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment to the suburban house of their dreams. But things are not as perfect as they seem: the house is infested by termites and the family starts going crazy. As the Kobayashis’ house begins to crumble, so does the sanity of its inhabitants. Katsuhiko takes it upon himself to keep them from the asylum…at any cost.

BLU-RAY CONTENTS
• Director approved remaster from the original negatives
• Feature length audio commentary by Tom Mes
• Director Gakuryu (exSogo) Ishii interview
• “The Crazy Family: Sogo Ishii’s Wild Child” Video essay by James Balmont
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp - limited to 2000 copies

[colinr0380]

That write up for Love Hotel makes it sound extremely similar to the first film that Takashi Ishii directed (and wrote, from his manga series), 1988's Angel Guts: Red Vertigo, down to Ishii's regular names for his main characters in Nami Tsuchiya and Tetsuro Muraki. All of the Angel Guts films are about doomed, insular couplings taking place against the backdrop of an uncaring (if not actively malicious) wider world, and that aspect only got underlined once he was directing his own material as well.

[rapta]

Great news! Third Window just submitted MERMAID LEGEND to the BBFC. Was hoping for this one most when they started announcing Directors Company titles, but I think they last said there was some difficulty obtaining the rights. I guess they sorted them out in the end!

PS: I think they mentioned recently they had another Kurosawa, so maybe that's Bumpkin Soup? I suppose they'll do another three later in the year, can't wait!

[Finch]

Two more Obayashi films coming in August: Casting Blossoms to the Sky, and Seven Weeks.

[Peacock]

Just individual releases of the boxset titles.

[Finch]

September titles are two Shinya Tsukamoto films:

Vital

• Making of Vital
• Archival Interview with Shinya Tsukamoto
• Video Essay - An Assault On The Senses
• Tom Mes Audio Commentary
• Music Clips
• World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival
• Special Effects Featurette
• Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

Shadow of Fire

• Tom Mes feature audio commentary
• “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards
• Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event
• Director and cast cinema stage greetings
• Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

[Peacock]

My review for Vital -

Contrary to Tsukamoto’s general reputation, this is a very sweet drama.

Hiroshi wakes up from a car crash in an almost catatonic state with no memories. His family encourage him to read the medical books he was so passionate about before his accident, enrols at university and becomes 100% focussed on his Medicine degree, which he excels in. Gradually fragmented memories start to return and his ability to communicate with others. Everything changes when a four month anatomy course begins. A love triangle forms between Hiroshi, a rival student and a girl from his past…

This feels quite like A Snake in June. Visually it resembles it at times with the blue tint, stillness and extensive rainy scenes. Prior to that film Tsukamoto tended towards manic destruction, but in much of Snake and especially here he takes a quieter more introspective stance.

Famous old reliable Tadanobu Asano stars as Hiroshi and is as great as always. No one else can do brooding introspection in such an interesting way. Kiki co-stars as his classmate love interest Ikumi. Unsurprisingly a model with her striking looks, this was actually her debut film, she gives a strong performance acting heavily with her eyes and amazing brows. Nami Tsukamoto plays Ryōko the girl from Hiroshi’s past; another stunning beauty and probably a dancer, this was her only film. I want to give a shout out to Ittoku Kishibe who plays the anatomy professor Dr Kashiwabuchi. He’s a stalwart of Kitano and Obayashi films and always steals any scene he’s in in my opinion! Surprisingly Tsukamoto doesn’t act in this one, nor does Tomorrow Taguchi aka Tetsuo - who made at least a cameo in every preceding Tsukamoto film. To be fair he was working on a lot of other movies by this point in his career so it probably clashed scheduling wise.

One criticism I may have about the characters is that classmate Ikumi is painted as a slightly cold, scheming, jealous, kinky, suicidal and sexually demanding individual. While Ryōko is the joyous, sweet, perfect dream girl. Tsukamoto film places the latter on quite a pedestal in a case of mother/whore complex. That said, a character in the movie does tell Hiroshi that his memories of Ryōko aren’t realistic, that he is only remembering the good times, so clearly Tsukamoto is self aware that he’s painting Ryōko as angel. It would have taken a way a lot of the emotional punch of the ending if Tsukamoto first had to create some balance first by showing Ryōko being a little bitch.

Tsukamoto is most famous for his frenetic editing, love of steampunk and wild cinematography. All three of these things make some kind of appearance in Vital. We get some choppy editing coupled with shaky handheld during a dream sequence on a beach involving a dance/fit? Tsukamoto drops the frame rate right down in certain flashbacks even going for freeze frames. Hiroshi is an accomplished sketch artist as he draws the anatomy of the cadaver he is dissecting, but his notes are mixed with drawings of car engines and machinery. There’s also a couple of trademark low angle shots of skyscrapers plus some factory chimneys spewing smoke into the atmosphere as the image jumps from side to side.

But mostly this is a calm, respectful and quiet introspective drama about loss and learning to let go.

[colinr0380]

But mostly this is a calm, respectful and quiet introspective drama about loss and learning to let go.

Which makes for a really interesting contrast against Kotoko, which is similarly extremely subjective under a somewhat misleadingly 'objective' veneer. I especially like the way that the classmate love interest has a whole different branch of drama going on (with even a suggestion of perhaps having been driven to have murdered one of her teachers) that a film interested in the 'outside world' may have otherwise focused on if it was not so fixated on the main character's internal struggles and obsession with a past woman who no longer fully exists in the present. Instead it gets swept away as an irrelevance until that character is just left as an onlooker to a very private drama.

According to rapta's comment Vital has been missing from Blu-ray in the UK for so long because when Tartan Video first released it on DVD in 2004 they apparently acquired a 20 year licence and so despite Tartan going out of business over a decade ago Vital has still been tied up in rights issues. So whilst it could be released as part of Arrow's "Solid Metal Nightmares" box in the US, this will be the first opportunity for the film to get a UK Blu-ray edition.

Anyway, it looks as if this will be a port of the existing version of the film from the Arrow set, so for me the main item of interest here is Tsukamoto's latest film Shadow of Fire!

[colinr0380]

In addition to the big news of the Tsukamoto double, also this month is seeing the Blu-ray of a more left-field modern indie selection, the 2022 comedy-drama about a filmmaker just looking for a screening room that will accept him, Your Lovely Smile.

[ryannichols7]

this may be a minor quibble, but it is genuinely annoying that this label's releases actively do not work with the "top menu" trick on Panasonic players. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't (most UK labels have no issue - all of my Arrow, BFI, Indicator, and Eureka releases have worked so far), but Third Window's always hardline stick to their region lock screen. wonder what causes this?

luckily of course, I do have other means of playing them

[black&huge]

I haven't bought any Tsukamoto titles on blu so I'm wondering if I should opt for the Arrow box or just snatch them up as they trickle out from other labels?

Specifically for this upcoming release of Vital does it best the version in arrow's boxset in any way?

[colinr0380]

Just extra features-wise it seems that it is going to be a port of the version of Vital on the US Arrow set, except with the addition of the "Assault on the Senses" featurette, which turned up on the disc for the two Tetsuo films in the Arrow set.

If you have the ability to do either region, I'd suggest the US Arrow "Solid Metal Nightmares" set as being better than picking up everything individually. Then UK Third Window discs for the Tsukamoto films which do not feature in the Arrow set, which are 2014's Fires on the Plain and the upcoming Shadow of Fire. Then either option between the UK Third Window and US Mondo Macabro discs of Hiruko The Goblin and Gemini.

Then fingers crossed that Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, Nightmare Detective and Nightmare Detective 2 turn up on Blu-ray at some point in the future!

[Peacock]

I believe Tetsuo: The Bullet Man has a German Blu-ray and as the movie has an English soundtrack it therefore makes it an English friendly release… but with the caveat that there’s a bit of Japanese dialogue that is untranslated as the Blu doesn’t contain English subs. Still, not perfect and I too hold out hope for the missing films in HD.

And The Phantom of Regular Size!

[black&huge]

Colin thank you for the extremely helpful post! Forgot about Fires on the Plain as well

[swo17]

Wasn't Arrow's set mostly just ports of discs that Third Window had previously released in the UK?

[colinr0380]

Yes, except for Vital which is only now getting its first UK Blu-ray edition, so it appears to be a port back the other way! Killing was released as a standalone edition in the UK by Third Window at the same time as the US Arrow set came out, and there was also a Third Window "Tsukamoto" set bundling Killing and the two shorter films Haze and The Adventures of Denchu-Kozo together (i.e. the three titles that were in the Arrow set but Third Window had not yet got to before that point, so everything in the Arrow set aside from Vital was released in the UK, just over multiple separate editions).

For some reason the Arrow set didn't include Fires on the Plain which Third Window also had out on Blu-ray in the UK - Tom Mes actually mentions his disappointment about the lack of this (and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man) in the commentary for Killing, since they formed a key part of the growing 'critique of war' that he saw occuring in Tsukamoto's work. But unfortunately there was some aspect preventing them from being added.

Gemini and Hiruko The Goblin were released by Third Window in the UK post-the Arrow set, and Mondo Macabro brought editions of those out in the US.

[Orlac]

Definetly go for the US GEMINI if you can - the UK has atrocious compression.

[rapta]

Killing was released as a standalone edition in the UK by Third Window at the same time as the US Arrow set came out, and there was also a Third Window "Tsukamoto" set bundling Killing and the two shorter films Haze and The Adventures of Denchu-Kozo together (i.e. the three titles that were in the Arrow set but Third Window had not yet got to before that point, so everything in the Arrow set aside from Vital was released in the UK, just over multiple separate editions).

Correction: the Tsukamoto triple-set (Killing, Haze, The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo) was released in April 2020, so around the same time as the Arrow USA set, and only much later did Killing get a standalone reissue (January 2024, in fact).

Might have been wise for TWF to wait and add Gemini and Hiruko the Goblin to that set, but I suppose we might have been waiting a while longer for the latter, and even longer if they wanted to add Vital as well (IIRC they were waiting on Tartan's license to expire for that one). Perhaps they decided to just release what they had at the time, knowing Region Free collectors would just go for the Arrow set but Region B collectors would be itching for more Tsukamoto!