|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Product Detail |
 |
|
Audio Format: DD 5.1 Surround, DD 1.0 Mono Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 / 2.35:1 (Anamorphic) Languages: Japanese Subtitles: English Region Code: 1 Year Made: 2005 Running Time: 536
Please note: shipping charge may be adjusted according to actual shipping charge we pay to the carrier.
ArtsmagicDVD is now in a position to announce that it has acquired the North American rights to the acclaimed....in Japan...and notorious...abroad....Angel Guts series. This series has been described by critic Pete Tombs as being the breakthrough movies that enabled the current surge in Easter horror to take place. They also mark the introduction of director Takashi Ishii to the movie business, since it was his manga, Tenshi no harawata (Angel Guts), that led to the creation of the series, and finally to his emergence as not just screenplay writer but director.
The Angel Guts series, all based on some unusual erotic horror manga by Takashi Ishii (who would later become familiar to Japanese film enthusiasts as the director of the Black Angel films, the Gonin films, and Freeze Me) are not particularly accessible films ? at least not by the standards of western viewing audiences. On the surface, they blend sex and violence (something still rather taboo on these shores) and they all deal with the act of rape, never shying away from depicting it either.
1. High School Coed
Tetsuro, Kajima and Sadakuni are a trio of no good biker punks who are out to do nothing but cause trouble around town. When they force a car off its path, they mug the male driver and brutally rape his female companion. Once this is done with, we see some scenes of Tetsuro in his home life. Oddly enough, he??s quite gentle with his family, his teenage sister specifically who he is almost a guardian to in many respects.
Cast: Machiko Ohtani, Sansho Fukami, Megu Kawashima, Kenji Kasai
Director: Chusei Sone
2. Red Classroom
The film begins with the screening of a film of a high school girl being brutally raped in her classroom. A photographer named Muraki for a popular men??s adult magazine is one of the men in attendance, and he is struck by the performance that the female lead gives in the film.
He becomes interested in her and sets out to find out more about her. He eventually finds her, finds out her name is Nami, and that she is all grown up now. Nami confides in him the fact that her performance in the film he saw was only all too real ? she was neither acting, not was she there of her own free will ? when he watched that porno film, he was watching her actually being raped.
Tetsuro, Kajima and Sadakuni are a trio of no good biker punks who are out to do nothing but cause trouble around town. When they force a car off its path, they mug the male driver and brutally rape his female companion. Once this is done with, we see some scenes of Tetsuro in his home life. Oddly enough, he??s quite gentle with his family, his teenage sister specifically who he is almost a guardian to in many respects.
Cast: Yuuki Mizuhara, Keizo Kanie, Jun Aki, Minako Mizushima
Director: Chusei Sone
3. Nami
Nami is a very well known female reporter for a high profile Japanese news magazine. When the movie begins, she??s working on a series of articles entitled ??Rape And Its Consequences?? that looks at why rape happens and how those it happens to are able to move on (or in some cases, aren??t able to move on).
For research purposes, Nami interviews a few different women who have survived rape attacks, and she??s not afraid to ask some rather probing questions about how the feel about the whole ordeal. One victim, who just wants to be left alone, is literally chased by Nami and her photographers and she goes after her subjects very aggressively.
Cast: Eri Kanuma, Takeo Chii, Minako Mizushima, Kyoko Aoyama
Director: Noboru Tanaka
4. Red Porno
The most explicitly titled of the four films reviewed, Red Porno follows yet another woman named Nami who helps out a friend in need at her job, filling in temporarily at her request. What Nami doesn??t realize until she shows up for work is that the job is modeling for a bondage magazine named, you guessed it, Red Porno. She??s even less stoked about the situation when she finds that she??s going to be tied up and photographed in the nude.
Nami isn??t comfortable at all with the idea but survives the shoot unscathed (fighting and shrieking the entire time, which seems to affect her photographers not one iota) but her life is thrown into a whole different world of pain when her photo graces the cover of the magazine and it hits the newsstands. She??s none too keen on the fact that a lot of people are recognizing her, and one fan is starting to get a little too close to Nami??s personal life for comfort.
Cast: Jun Izumi, Masahiko Abe, Kyoko Ito, Miiko Sawaki
Director: Toshiharu Ikeda
5. Red Dizziness
The final film in the series to be produced through Nikkatsu, Red Vertigo marks the directorial debut of Takashi Ishii, who would later go on to some critical acclaim with his two Gonin films, his pair of Black Angel films, and his recent rape/revenge film, Freeze Me.
The film follows an overworked and stressed out hospital nurse named Nami who spends much of her spare time helping out her boyfriend, who makes a living by taking erotic, sometimes BDSM themed, photographs of women. Nami, when she's not at the hospital doing her nightly duties, spends a lot of time in the dark room helping out her man.
Without wanting to spoil anything, the more Nami works both at the hospital and in the dark room, the less rest she gets and once this starts to compound, her world develops (pun intended) into a psycho-sexual surrealist world of rough sex and strange symbolism.
Cast: Mayako Katsuragi, Naoto Takenaka
Director: Takashi Ishii
On the last of the five DVDs in the set, Red Vertigo, we find another lengthy Takashi Ishii Interview (32:30). This is probably the most interesting interview out of the lot as Ishii made his directorial debut on this film, based on his own manga work. He explains the unusual naming conventions used in the film (Nami being the one used the most often for the female leads) and why they're repeated so often. Ishii also explains why there is a constant use of rain during many of the night time scenes in his work. He also gives his thoughts on the first four films in the Angel Guts series and makes some interesting contrasts and comparisons to how they stack up beside his own source material.
Each of the five discs also contains a selection of trailers for all of the five films in the Nikkatsu Angel Guts series, some well written and interesting biographies for the key talent involved in each of the productions, filmographies for the key talent involved in the productions, and a reproduction of the original Japanese sleeve art.
Special Features:
- BIOGRAPHIES/FILMOGRAPHIES
- ORIGINAL MOVIE TRAILERS X 5
- INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTORS, TAKASHI ISHII, TOSHIHARU IKEDA, NOBORU TANAKA
- PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
- COMMENTARY BY JASPER SHARP
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Be the first to write a review. |
|
| No customer review found. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
