Yakuza Law

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Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Yakuza Law

#1 Post by Calvin » Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:17 pm

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Director Teruo Ishii (Blind Woman’s Curse, Horrors of Malformed Men), the Godfather of J-sploitation, presents Yakuza Law (AKA Yakuza’s Law: Lynching) – a gruelling anthology of torture, spanning three district periods of Japanese history and bringing to the screen some of the most brutal methods of torment ever devised.

In this deep dive into the world of the Yakuza, meet the violent men who rule the Japanese underworld and the cruel punishments inflicted on those who transgress them. The carnage begins in the Edo Period with a violent tale of samurai vengeance starring Bunta Sugawara (Battles Without Honour and Humanity), before shifting to the Meiji Period as the exiled Ogata (Minoru Oki, Shogun Assassin) returns to face punishment for his past transgressions… and, ultimately, to take his revenge. Finally, the action is brought right up to date with a tale of gang warfare set in then-present-day 60s Japan and headlined by Teruo Yoshida (Ishii’s Orgies of Edo), as a powerful crime syndicate seeks bloody vengeance for the theft of one hundred thousand yen.

Brutal, bewildering and definitely not for the faint-hearted, Yakuza Law represents Japanese popular cinema at its most extreme… and most thrilling.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original lossless mono Japanese soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles
• New audio commentary by author and critic Jasper Sharp
• Erotic-Grotesque and Genre Hopping: Teruo Ishii Speaks, a rare vintage interview with the elusive director on his varied career, newly edited for this release
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jacob Phillips

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Tom Mes

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Boosmahn
Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:08 pm

Re: Yakuza Law

#2 Post by Boosmahn » Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:28 pm

Only release I'm interested in from May's batch. The extras look slim but what is present seems worthwhile.

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Yakuza Law

#3 Post by zedz » Sun May 17, 2020 5:28 pm

Middling Ishii. It's a portmanteau film relating three tales from three eras, unified by extreme gore. Extreme for 1969 and extreme for any time really: you have been warned. The gore effects aren't always especially well done, but the rest of the film is solid enough. There's a nice sequence where one of the characters is running headlong through a bamboo forest that's constructed with a whole lot of jump cuts (possibly to mask a lack of actual bamboo).

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