Arrow have decided to end the year with The Big Announcement. Yes, it's the restored release on Blu-Ray and 4K of... Hard Boiled. After years of imports or the old Tartan DVD, it's finally returning to us in all in John Woo's cinematic action glory.
Add to that a boxset: Eiicho Kudo's Samurai Revolution Trilogy. Kudo directed the stylish Fort of Death, so this release of 13 Assassins (known to many via Miike's excellent remake), The Great Killing and 11 Samurai should be a treat.
Both release the end of March so some months to wait but doubtless they will be worth it. Read on for shamelessly 'borrowed' detail:
Hard Boiled
In the 80s and 90s, director John Woo would cement his reputation as a master of action films with classics like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Bullet in the Head. This would culminate in 1992 with the release of his masterpiece Hard Boiled, the hyperkinetic, hyperviolent exemplar of the Heroic Bloodshed genre.
Iconic actor Chow Yun-Fat (City on Fire) stars as Tequila, a gung-ho cop working to bring down Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong, Infernal Affairs), the villainous triad boss who maintains a stranglehold on Hong Kong’s illegal gun trade. Johnny attempts to recruit Ah-Long (Tony Leung, Bullet in the Head), an assassin from a rival syndicate, just as the insubordinate Tequila gets taken off the case. Taking justice into his own hands, Tequila tracks Ah-Long down and uncovers an intricate web of deception that threatens to boil over into all-out war.
A fiery coalescence of electrifying performances, elaborate narrative and operatic gunfights, Hard Boiled has rightly been exalted as the undisputed champion of Hong Kong action films, ready to unleash a hail of bullets anew in this stunning restoration exploding with extras.
4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Priscilla Page and archival writing and an interview with John Woo by Stéphane Moïssakis
• Six postcard-sized artcards
Eiicho Kudo's Samurai Revolution Trilogy
Throughout Japanese cinema, the image of the noble samurai righting wrongs katana in hand remains a fixture of the jidaigeki genre, with the authoritarianism and corruption of the country’s medieval past often attenuated for the sake of spectacle and entertainment. But in the 1960s, director Eiichi Kudo’s Samurai Revolution trilogy shattered this idealised conception of the samurai, providing an authentic and scathing portrayal of Japan’s tyrannical past to question the social and political landscape of his day.
Beginning in 1963 with 13 Assassins (remade in 2010 by Takashi Miike), followed by The Great Killing in 1964 and 11 Samurai in 1967, the Samurai Revolution trilogy depicts the rot at the heart of the Tokugawa shogunate: despotic lords oppress their people and abuse their power with impunity, loyalty to the Shogun is valued above compassion and righteousness, and samurai have shed any trace of nobility in favor of their own self-interest, which they pursue with gleeful cruelty. Each film portrays a group of honorable samurai driven to plan the political assassination of a corrupt lord, hoping to light the fuse that will eventually destroy the regime. But the rebels must understand the fatal consequences of their mission. Should the Shogun falter, then their lives and the entire samurai class will be forfeit.
Eiichi Kudo masterfully deploys expressive black and white cinematography, spectacular swordfights and compelling performances to paint a rich visual and narrative tapestry, using each film to further explore questions of ethics and morality. Featuring a who’s who of iconic jidaigeki actors including Chiezo Kataoka (Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji), Ko Nishimura (Lady Snowblood), Kei Sato (Hara-Kiri) and Toru Abe (Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman), Kudo’s Samurai Revolution trilogy rank among the most important samurai films ever made and are a must-have for chanbara connoisseurs.
