Lucy (Rosanna Arquette) and Monte (David Bowie) work at Dali, a super trendy NYC nightspot. They’re both in debt, underpaid and dealing with all sorts of weirdness in their lives when they make up their minds to join up with lingerie designer Viv (Eszter Balint) and rob their workplace. But they’d have to be good at being criminals to pull that off. They are nowhere near even OK.

Also released as The Incident,  Houdini and Company, The Robbery and Shag-O-Rama, this has some strange folks in it. Even the protagonist, Lucy, wants to be Houdini. Plus, the cast has several intriguing actors like Buck Henry, Marlene Matlin, Vivica Lindfors, Maura Tierney, Andre Gregory, Kathy Kinney and James Avery. Even Iman and Julian Lennon are in this.

There’s nothing really like it, so to get a better version of this after years of assembly cuts and producers’ versions is pretty cool.

Extras include an introduction by director Richard Shepard; commentary with Shepard, actors Rosanna Arquette and Eszter Balint, co-producer Sarah Jackson and co-screenwriter Tamar Brott, moderated by Cereal at Midnight host Heath Holland; commentary by Director Richard Shepard; a making-of; a photo gallery with commentary by Richard Shepard; director and theatrical cuts; a 2024 trailer; the original trailer; a limited edition slipcase and booklet with essays from film historian Graham Rinaldi and director Richard Shepard. You can order this film from MVD.

Ken and Joji (Aizawa Shō and Shishido Jō) have been hired to investigate a robbery as well as kill a cop named Sakai. Doing so will test their friendship in this film from director and writer Yasuharu Hasebe (Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss, Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701 Grudge Song).

With a non-linear narrative and older and younger hired killers paired together years before Pulp Fiction, this tells the story of two men who will kill anyone in their way before one of them is obsessed with a photo found in the hands of one of his victims. This leads to one of those noir “don’t ask what you don’t want to know” narratives, as everyone they meet is untrustworthy at best and murderous at worst. Crime doesn’t pay, except here, it ends up that way, even if it’s not for everyone.

The Hitman: Blood Smells Like Roses is just one of the movies in the Arrow Video V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set. The set includes a newly filmed introduction by Japanese film critic Masak Tanioka and a video essay by critic and Japanese cinema expert James Balmont. You can get this from MVD.

Takanishi (Hideki Saijo) just watched his lover Reiki get killed in a Yakuza crossfire. Instead of just letting it pass, he’s in a V-Cinema movie, which means that he’s going to kill everyone who did him wrong. And because this was directed by Teruo Ishii (The Executioner, Shogun’s Joy Of Torture, Horrors of Malformed Men), that means that revenge is going to be so bloody that you won’t believe it — like a garbage truck chasing down Yakuza until they’re smashed into gore.

This was the first movie the director made in 12 years. He was seemingly ready to go wild.

There’s also catgirl thief Minako Fujimoto, love hotel queen Kimiko Yo, plenty of bad guys to shoot and an ending that’s just guns and naked women in still photos, making you wish that Teruo Ishii made this even longer.

The Hitman: Blood Smells Like Roses is just one of the movies in the Arrow Video V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set. The set includes a newly filmed introduction by Japanese film critic Masak Tanioka, a video essay by Japanese cinema expert Frankie Balboa and a trailer. You can get this from MVD.

I’ve written at length about the Female Prisoner Scorpion series, as they’re some of my favorite movies ever—Beast Stable is one of the best things the human race has made—so I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing a direct-to-video reimagining of the first movie.

Man, I was wrong.

Nami Matsushima (Meiko Kaji) is — was? — the Scorpion, an unkillable prisoner who did more than get revenge. She is the patron saint of wronged women throughout Japanese prisons, a whispered name that is worshipped and feared.

This begins with an unnamed woman (Natsuki Okamoto) being trapped in hardening concrete before the barrel she’s in falls off a truck, freeing her, before she’s trained by the yakuza to be an assassin, sent to prison and let loose in the catacombs below the cells — the same place Scorpion was in all the way back in Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 — and murder Scorpion to gain revenge for the warden, who lost his eye to the legendary lady’s sharpened spoon.

But can you kill an idea? Or better yet, can you become one? The systems that keep women in prison, that ruin lives, they want Scorpion dead for sure because she inspires people. When the unnamed heroine finds Scorpion, she’s long gone, walled into concrete, but she is holding her spoon as if she died fighting. Except that her hand opens, releasing the spoon into our new heroine’s hand before disappearing. Now, Scorpion is reborn, but more to the point, she can never die.

Directed and written by Toshiharu Ikeda (Mermaid Legend,  Sex Hunter), this movie is about as perfect as a down-and-dirty, low-budget VHS tape can be. How amazing is it that it’s in a perfect Arrow box set, cleaned up and still ready to destroy your brains? I couldn’t love a movie more.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Death Threat is just one of the movies in the Arrow Video V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set. The set includes a newly filmed introduction by Japanese film critic Masak Tanioka, a video essay by film historian Samm Deighan and a trailer. You can get this from MVD.

Directed by Yôichi Sai, who wrote it with Wui-Sin Chong, this has a gang of criminals trying to steal a few million dollars from American marines in Okinawa. Seiji Matano plays the leader of these rugged and rough crooks, a long-haired, brooding bad guy who remains in control of every situation while being as cool as possible.

There’s also a jazzy soundtrack that I enjoyed and Okinawa looks beautiful.

While this is longer than most V-Cinema and perhaps not as quickly violent as others, it’s not bad. As usual with criminal films, the gang itself may doom the situation before the USMC or cops catch them.

Burning Dog is just one of the movies in the Arrow Video V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set. The set includes a newly filmed introduction by Japanese film critic Masak Tanioka, a video essay by critic and Japanese cinema expert Mark Schilling and a trailer. You can get this from MVD.

A Brazilian-Japanese criminal plays yakuza gangs against each other, but bites off much more than he can chew. Inspired by a story that director Kazuhiro Kiuchi read about a Taiwanese gangster going to Japan to escape arrest, this is the story of Carlos (Takenaka Naoto), who finds himself in the middle of a gang war between the Yamashiro and Harakawa families.

As the old man of the Yamashiro gang (Minoru Oki) tries to find his successor, he finds that everyone he wanted for the job is dead. It may have been Hayakawa (Yuzo Hayakawa), whom Katayama (Ryuji Katagiri) wants dead, so he can be first in line. And then there’s Sato (Goichi Yamada), who has brought in an American monster of a hitman (Chuck Wilson) to do his dirty work.

Blood, guns and neon are the order of the day. Ah, V-Cinema. Short, sweet and full of violence!

Carlos is just one of the movies in the Arrow Video V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set. The set includes a newly filmed introduction by Japanese film critic Masak Tanioka, an interview with director Kazuhiro Kiuchi and a video essay by critic and Japanese cinema expert Jonathan Clements. You can get this from MVD.

After doing a jail bid for embezzlement, Kiriko (Yuko Natori) leads a quiet life, driving a cab overnight. The problem is that someone is stalking her in a gigantic Land Cruiser. Yes, it’s Duel, but in a Japan that is falling to pieces and in the middle of an economic collapse.

Directed and written by Shunichi Nagasaki, this is a V-Cinema movie committed to keeping your eyes on the screen. There’s never time to get bored and Kiriko, despite her checkered past, is a heroine who you can get behind. Every man in her life is horrible and when that gigantic truck keeps coming near — Nagasaki was inspired by the story of a female taxi driver who told him during a ride just how dangerous her job is — it’s thrilling.

Is the driver someone she hurt before? Or has man’s inhumanity to man kept that from even being possible? Maybe someone just like to frighten women. You’ll find out.

Stranger is just one of the movies in the Arrow Video V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set. The set includes a newly filmed introduction by Japanese film critic Masak Tanioka and an interview with director Shunichi Nagasaki. You can get this from MVD.