Radiance Films have been releasing many foreign films on Blu-ray. But these are no just any Blu-ray releases, they feature great picture quality and awesome bonus features. Here are the latest releases from Radiance Films.
Underworld Beauty: Retrieving the diamonds he stashed before his arrest, thief Miyamoto hopes to help his old partner Mihara, crippled during the heist. Their former boss, crime lord Oyane, offers to mediate with a foreign buyer, but secretly wants the stones for himself. The deal goes awry when gunmen appear on the scene. Mihara swallows the diamonds but dies in the chase, leaving a valuable corpse in the police morgue. Miyamoto forms an uneasy alliance with Mihara's wildcat sister Akiko to keep the gems away from gangsters, cops and even Akiko's greedy boyfriend. This wildly inventive early noir sees Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tattooed Life) infectiously playing with genre rules and gender stereotypes.
Bonus Materials
* New 4K restoration of the film by Nikkatsu Corporation
* Uncompressed mono PCM audio
* New interview with critic Mizuki Kodama (2024, 15 mins)
* Bonus feature: Seijun Suzuki’s Love Letter (1959, 40 mins)
* Audio commentary on Love Letter by Suzuki biographer William Carroll (2024)
* Trailers
* Newly improved English subtitle translation
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
* Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Claudia Siefen-Leitich and an archival review of the film
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The Cat: Two robbers hold up a bank and its employees demanding 3 million marks for their ransom. The police plot to storm the bank but are unaware the robbers have an accomplice on the outside, anticipating their every move. Genre master Dominik Graf specialised in crime films and The Cat is one of his greatest. A heist film of the highest order, it grabs you from its opening scenes and doesn't let go. Winner of Best Direction at the German Film Awards, The Cat is an undiscovered treasure and Radiance Films is proud to present it on Blu-ray for the first time outside Germany.
Bonus Materials
* High-Definition digital transfer newly graded by Radiance Films and overseen by director Dominik Graf
* Interview with Dominik Graf (2024, 62 mins)
* Interview with screenwriter Christoph Fromm (2024, 31 mins)
* Interview with producer Georg Feil (2024, 31 mins)
* Select-scene commentary by Dominik Graf (2024)
* Trailer
* New English subtitle translation
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
* 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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Hokruiku Proxy War: Loose-cannon gangster Kawada rebels when his two-timing boss forms an alliance with a major crime syndicate. The syndicate's main rivals see Kawada as their perfect proxy, but his furious temper quickly rubs them the wrong way, leaving Kawada to face overwhelming forces. Fukasaku's final yakuza film features some of the strongest women's roles in his career, plus a raucous central performance from Hiroki Matsukata (Cops vs Thugs) and support from the legendary Sonny Chiba.
Bonus Materials
* High-Definition digital transfer
* Uncompressed mono PCM audio
* New interview with actress Yoko Takahashi (2024, 15 mins)
* New interview with screenwriter Koji Takada (2024, 19 mins)
* Yakuza film historian Akihiko Ito on the real-life Hokuriku Proxy War murder case (2024, 15 mins)
* Trailer
* Newly improved English subtitle translation
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
* Limited edition booklet featuring newly translated archival writings on the film
* 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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The Eel: After serving time in prison for murdering his unfaithful wife, Yamashita (Koji Yakusho, Perfect Days, Cure) is released on parole, accompanied only by his pet eel. Hoping to stay out of trouble, he takes over a rural barber shop that quickly becomes a gathering point for the eccentric locals. However, the discovery of a woman's failed suicide starts a chain reaction that brings back past demons - and not just his own. The Eel won master filmmaker Shohei Imamura his second Palme d'Or, after 1983's The Ballad of Narayama and was the breakthrough of its star Yakusho.
Bonus Materials
* High-Definition digital transfer
* Uncompressed mono PCM audio
* Interview with critic Tony Rayns
* Interview with screenwriter Daisuke Tengan
* Visual essay by Tom Mes on the year 1997 as a turning point in Japanese cinema
* Newly improved English subtitle translation
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
* Limited edition booklet featuring an archival interview with Imamura
* 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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Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers: As their popularity waned in the US, the hardboiled genre remained hugely popular and relevant throughout the 1960s and 70s in France, thanks to the successful Serie Noire imprint and a succession of new translations. In Alain Corneau's early films, he sought to continue the noir tradition in his native France, and was both directly and indirectly inspired by titans of hardboiled genre, including Kenneth Fearing and Jim Thompson. A heady combination of classic noir and 70s grit, these three darkly thrilling films are vastly underrated and important works in the canon of crime cinema.
In Police Python 357, Yves Montand (The Wages of Fear) plays a tough cop who, when his lover is found murdered, finds himself implicated in her death and in a battle of wits with a powerful rival, in the second screen adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock.
Serie Noire adapts Jim Thompson's A Hell of A Woman to the banlieues of Paris: in an astonishing performance, Patrick Dewaere (Themroc) attempts to save a young girl from prostitution, with murder the only solution.
In Choice of Arms, Yves Montand heads an all-star cast, including Catherine Denueve and Gerard Depardieu, as a former crook pulled out of retirement when a gang on the run turn to him for shelter after a prison break.
Bonus Materials
* High-Definition digital transfers, presented on three discs
* Uncompressed mono PCM audio for each film
* Audio commentary by Mike White on Police Python 357
* Maxim Jakubowski on Police Python 357’s source novel and adaptation (2024)
* Archival interview with Alain Corneau and François Périer about Police Python 357 from Belgian Television (1976)
* Série noire set interviews with Alain Corneau, Patrick Dewaere and Miriam Boyer from Belgian Television (1981)
* Série noire: The Darkness of the Soul - An archival documentary featuring cast and crew on the making of the film (2013, 53 mins)
* Archival interview with Alain Corneau and Marie Trintignant about Série noire (2002, 30 mins)
* A visual essay about Jim Thompson adaptations for the screen (2024)
* Introduction by documentary filmmaker Jérôme Wybon (2024)
* Shooting Choice of Arms - interviews with the cast and crew including behind-the-scenes footage (1981)
* Interviews with Deneuve, Montand and Depardieu from the set (1981)
* Interview with Manuela Lazic on Yves Montand in the 1970s (2024)
* Trailers
* Optional English subtitles for each film
* Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
* Limited edition 80-page booklet featuring new writing by Charlie Brigden, Andrew Male, Nick Pinkerton, Travis Woods, and newly translated archival interviews with Alain Corneau
* Limited edition of 2500 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
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So as you can see from these above Blu-rays that Radiance Films has really brought the entertainment right to you front room. There is something here for every film fan. Wonderful Blu-ray transfers and great bonus features really make any of these releases a great addition to anyone's home video library!
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