Michel (Michele Cossu) is a shepherd in Sardinia who has been wrongly accused of stealing livestock and killing a policeman. He runs into the hills with his brother Peppeddu (Peppeddu Cossu) and their flock, which they are still paying for. Losing the sheep would be too much to bear for his family, but that’s what happens as they are chased by the authorities. Then, facing a trial, he decides to be what he has been charged with: a criminal.

Directed by Vittorio De Seta, who wrote the script with Vera Gherarducci, this has a documentary feel, as those are the movies that De Seta started his career with. This is the story of a poor man who only has his job to sustain him, living within some of the most remote areas of the world, just trying to earn a living when the rest of the universe seems to conspire against him. There is no mastering nature just as there is often no way out when your back is against the rocks.

This is a gorgeous, if dismal, film and while set in the 20th century, it could have been set at any time, as the world that it comes from has remained the same since we counted time.

Radiance Films blu ray of Bandits of Ogrosolo is the first blu ray release of this movie in the U.S. It has a new 4K restoration from the original camera negative by The Film Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with Titanus with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Extras include interviews with cinematographer Luciano Tovoli and curator and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht, a trailer, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Roberto Curti.

You can order this from MVD.

Trying to survive post-war Japan, Kawada (Noboru Ando) and Tsukada (Asao Koike) are caught by the military stealing copper wire. While Kawada is arrested and goes to prison, Tsukada escapes and starts a gang with the money he’s made. As he suffers the cruel attention of Warden  Hannya (Tomisaburo Wakayama), Kawada dreams of getting out of prison and the revenge he must take.

Directed by Tai Kato, this was followed in the same year by a sequel, Choeki juhachi-nen: Kari shutsugoku. Noburo Ando volunteered for a suicide frogmen unit during World War II, but that ended before he could give his life. In 1952, he formed his own Yakuza family, the Ando-gumi, which had three hundred members at one point. He was sent to jail for six years after sending a hitman to kill a rival and when he got out, he dissolved the gang and went into acting.

He said, “In Japanese, the only difference between yakuza and yakusha — an actor — is one hiragana character. All yakuza have to be actors to survive.” He was also a singer and played himself in movies about his life, but American audiences probably know him best for New Battles Without Honor and Humanity and Graveyard of Honor.

As Kawada comes to terms with what the war has made him do, he rises to the defense of the underdog in jail life, all while Tsukada is the opposite, now firmly embracing power and ruthlessness.

Art imitates life, as Kawada also feels that he must atone for sending the brother of Hisako (Hiroko Sakuramachi) on a suicide mission during the war. Noburo Ando left prison to meet with the mother of the man he had killed and asked for forgiveness. In this movie, he tries for the same by attempting to mentor her brother Shuichi (Masaomi Kondo) when he is placed in the same cell.

When Kawada learns that his former partner hasn’t opened a market to help people but instead a brothel — and caused the suicide of a former lover — he must leave behind prison and the mentorship of the Yakuza elder Osugi (Michitaro Mizushima).

This is a movie that shows just how bad Japan was at the close of the war and how it had to both forgive itself and find a new path, even if it was one person doing so.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Eighteen Years In Prison has extras like an appreciation by critic and programmer Tony Rayns, a visual essay on Japanese prison films by author Tom Mes, a trailer, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Ivo Smits and an archival interview with Noboru Ando by Mark Schilling. It’s a limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

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Tokijiro (Kinnosuke Nakamura) has left behind being a killer and instead is wandering in search of freedom. That’s impossible, as he still has obligations, including one to a gang boss which forces him to kill a man named Mutsuda no Sanzo (Chiyonosuke Azuma). Seeking absolution, he listens to the man’s dying wish and vows to take care of his victim’s widow Okinu (Junko Ikeuchi) and her young son. That doesn’t matter to the Yakuza, who now want the entire family killed.

Directed by Tai Kato, whose Eighteen Years In Prison was also released by Radiance, this takes the novel Kutsukake Tokijiro by Shin Hasegawa and creates a gangster film that’s set in the Muromachi period. Tokijiro may be the deadliest of all swordsmen, but he has a code of honor that he must follow no matter what, even when it goes against his moral code. Complicated, yes. That said, he leads a violent, bloody and often depressing existence in which he must follow duty to the end.

Even those who kill for a living have to believe in something. Can someone ever wash their hands of all that murder? And for a movie that asks these questions, it isn’t afraid to present up close and gritty battles filled with blood.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza has extras including an interview with Koushi Ueno about the film’s place in genre cinema history, a visual essay on star Kinnosuke Nakamura by Japanese cinema expert Robin Gatto; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by scholar Ivo Smits and a newly translated archival review.

You can get it from MVD.

Filmed in Algeria, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Philippines, Morocco and Tunisia, Long Live Death! is directed and written by Fernando Arrabal, who co-founded the Panic Movement with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor.

He based much of the movie on his own experiences growing up during the Spanish Civil War. The main character is Fando (Mahdi Chaouch), whose mother (Nuria Espert) turns his father in to the authorities as a suspected communist. She tells her son that he was executed but in truth, he’s only been placed in jail. As a result, his son wonders if he’s even alive and what happened to him.

That’s a basic explanation of a movie that is a hallucination of violence with shocking moments in almost every frame. Arrabal’s father was captured by the Spanish Army, was supposed to spend thirty years in prison and then escaped after entering a mental hospital, disappearing into the snow. He was never seen again.

This movie feels like him trying to work that out. What emerges is a movie filled with real surgical footage and no shortage of animal violence. It’s near Italian in its slaughter so beware if you’re upset when that happens in movies. Humans are also destroyed in this, as a man is buried and has horses step on his exposed head, while a priest has his balls cut off and then fed to him.

Pure shock and not for shock’s sake. This is filmmaking and presents an unfiltered look at a world that no ten year old should have been put through.

The Radiance release of Viva La Muerte is the first blu ray release of the movie with English subtitles. It has a new 4K restoration of the original 35mm negative by the Cinémathèque Toulouse in collaboration with Fernando Arrabal; an audio discussion from the Projection Booth podcast featuring Mike White, Heather Drain and Jess Byard; Sur les traces de Baal, a short documentary by Abdellatif Ben Ammar in which the filmmaker followed Arrabal’s film and captured him at work on Viva la Muerte!;  VIDARRABAL, a feature-length documentary on Arrabal by Xavier Pasturel Barron capturing the life and work of this singular filmmaker, playwright, painter and essayist, featuring interviews with admirers, friends and family, including members of the Panic Movement he founded; an interview with scholar and Spanish cinema expect David Archibald; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork and a booklet featuring new writing by Sabina Stent and an archival interview with Fernando Arrabal.

You can get it from MVD.

The debut movie of Anthony Waller, who would go on to make An American Werewolf In Paris, Mute Witness is the story of Billy Hughes (Marina Zudina), a make-up artist working on a slasher movie in Moscow that is directed by Andy Clark (Evan Richards). She knows him, as he’s the boyfriend of her sister Karen (Fay Ripley).

What she does not know is that there’s also an adult movie being shot on the same set at night and it’s not just a pornographic film, it’s also a snuff movie.

She’s chased by the killer, Arkadi (Igor Volkov) and the director, Lyosha (Sergei Karlenkov), forcing her to jump out a window. Her sister arrives to save her and Lyosha acts like he happened on this accident.

After the police arrive, Billy is able to communicate that she’s seen a killing. They use her special effects to tell the authorities that it was all for a movie. Meanwhile, Arkadi is disposing of the woman’s body in an incinerator and a man known only as The Reaper (referred to as a special guest, we’ll get to that soon) shows up to make sure everything has proceeded properly.

Luckily for Billy, she’s protected by Detective Aleksander Larsen (Oleg Yankovsky), a Moscow cop who has been after this snuff film crew. Not that Billy can’t protect herself, as she throws a hairdryer into a bathtub to take out the director. But can Larsen be trusted? And why does The reaper think she has a disk that has all the information the police need to stop him?

Roger Ebert compared this movie to Halloween and Blood Simple. That’s how good it is. I wish it’s director didn’t get stuck with such a bad movie to make once he got to Hollywood.

As for The Reaper, that’s Alec Guinness. His cameo was filmed nearly a decade before this movie, as Waller worked with him on a commercial. The actor asked for no money, which ended up being one of his final roles. All that he asked was that he not be credited in the film and there be no press surrounding his involvement in it. That’s why The Reaper is played by Mystery Guest Star.

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of this movie has a 4K restoration approved by director Anthony Waller, who also has a commentary track. There’s a second commentary with production designer Matthias Kammermeier and composer Wilbert Hirsch, moderated by critic Lee Gambin. Plus, there’s visual essays by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Chris Alexander; the Snuff Movie presentation used to get investors; original location scouting footage; original footage with Alec Guinness, filmed a decade earlier than the rest of the movie; a teaser trailer; a trailer; an image gallery; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais; a double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michelle Kisner.

You can order this from MVD.

A man named Kure Ichiro (Yoji Matsuda) wakes in an asylum with no memory and is told by Dr. Wakabayashi (Hideo Murota) and Dr. Masaki (Shijaku Katsura) that he’s blocking the past as he killed his bride on his wedding day. However, his treatment begins to confuse fantasy and reality, especially a manuscript called Dogra Magra.

Based on the novel by Kyusaku Yumeno and the last film of director Toshio Matsumoto, Dogra Magra is a movie that features a hospital filled with pickled punk babies in jars, doctors who try and convince a man that he’s a character in a novel, rotten corpses and a reality that may or may not be true. One of the doctors might now even be alive.

This is a film with no easy answers and maybe the best way to watch it is just to let it wash over you and try to figure it all out on the tenth rewatch.

Presented on blu ray for the first time outside of Japan, this Radiance Films release has a digital transfer supervised by director of photography Tatsuo Suzuki and producer Shuji Shibata. It also has commentary and an interview with director Toshio Matsumoto; a visual essay by programmer and curator Julian Ross; information on the Ahodara Sutra chant by legendary street performer Hiroshi Sakano; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow; a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Hirofumi Sakamoto, president of the Postwar Japan Moving Image Archive and author Jasper Sharp on screenwriter Atsushi Yamatoya, an interview with producer Shuji Shibata and Matsumoto’s director’s statement; and it’s all in a limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

You can order this movie from MVD.