Misawa (Rentaro Mikuni) is a post-war success. He works at a big ad agency and lives in a massive home with his wife (Masumi Harukawa) and their son. But then, two criminals — Kawanishi (Ko Nishimura) and Sabu (Hideo Murota) — show up and want to bring him into their plan, as they have kidnapped the baby of cancer researcher Dr. Sakata (Ken Mitsuda).

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, this film arrives decades before home invasion movies were supposedly invented. It also has Misawa be no hero, instead a man who deals with the attempted assault of his wife by doing the same to her later. He’s living on credit, giving his life over to the foreign enemy who dropped two nukes on his countrymen. Maybe he’s as much a criminal as the bad guys. He definitely has less of a code to live by.

Fukasaku Kinji would go on to make Yakuza Graveyard and more famously, Battles Without Honor and Humanity and Battle Royale. Oh yeah — he also directed Message from Space!

The Arrow Video Blu-ray release of The Threat — available for the first time outside of Japan — has extras including audio commentary by Japanese film expert Tom Mes; Warning Warning Danger Danger, a brand new 20-minute video appreciation by critic and Japanese film specialist Mark Schilling; the original theatrical trailer; an image gallery; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Hayley Scanlon and a double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella. You can order it from MVD.