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V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray delivers a five-disc, nine-film deep dive into the raw, shot-on-video crime cinema that defined Toei’s V-Cinema movement. Fast, abrasive, and unapologetically pulpy, these films capture the energy of late-1980s and 1990s Japanese exploitation, where yakuza violence, rogue cops, hired killers, and femme fatales collide with relentless momentum.

 

The collection opens with Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage, a revenge-fuelled action thriller following a hardboiled detective teaming up with a gun-toting nun to recover stolen church money. Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet twists yakuza loyalty and betrayal into a volatile coming-of-age nightmare, while Stranger traps viewers in suffocating paranoia as a taxi driver is stalked through the night by a mysterious pursuer. Carlos escalates the chaos with a petty criminal attempting to manipulate rival gangs, and Burning Dog delivers a tightly wound heist set against a U.S. military base in Okinawa.

 

The set also includes Female Prisoner Scorpion: Death Threat, a late-entry spin on one of Japan’s most iconic exploitation franchises, blending prison brutality with assassin mythology. Teruo Ishii’s The Hitman: Blood Smells Like Roses offers operatic vengeance from one of Japanese cinema’s most notorious provocateurs, while Danger Point: The Road to Hell tests loyalty between contract killers spiralling toward disaster. The collection concludes with XX: Beautiful Hunter, a sleazy, high-octane tale of an assassin raised by a fanatical religious cult who turns against her creators.

 

Together, these films showcase V-Cinema at its most ferocious and inventive, capturing a subgenre built on speed, excess, and creative freedom. Arrow Video presents the collection with extensive newly produced extras, making this an essential sampler of contemporary Japanese exploitation cinema.

 

1989 / approx. 795 min total

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray]

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  • BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES
    • High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all films
    • Original lossless Japanese mono audio for Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage
    • Original lossless Japanese stereo audio for all other films
    • Optional newly translated English subtitles for all films
    • Nine postcard-sized art cards
    • Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon
    • Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Earl Jackson, Daisuke Miyao, and Hayley Scanlon

     

    DISC 1 – CRIME HUNTER: BULLETS OF RAGE / NEO CHINPIRA: ZOOM GOES THE BULLET
    • Newly filmed introductions by Masaki Tanioka
    • Loose Cannon, interview with director Shundo Okawa
    • Zooming Out, interview with Banmei Takahashi
    • Crime Hunter and the Dawn of V-Cinema, video essay by Tom Mes
    • Original trailers

     

    DISC 2 – STRANGER / CARLOS
    • Newly filmed introductions by Masaki Tanioka
    • Stranger Than Fiction, interview with Shunichi Nagasaki
    • From Manga to Movies, interview with Kazuhiro Kiuchi
    • An Extra Round in the Chamber, video essay by Jonathan Clements

     

    DISC 3 – BURNING DOG / FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION: DEATH THREAT
    • Newly filmed introductions by Masaki Tanioka
    • Fire and Ice, video essay by Mark Schilling
    • Toshiharu Ikeda’s Beautiful Monster of Vengeance, video essay by Samm Deighan
    • Original trailers

     

    DISC 4 – THE HITMAN: BLOOD SMELLS LIKE ROSES / DANGER POINT: THE ROAD TO HELL
    • Newly filmed introductions by Masaki Tanioka
    • The Versatility of Teruo Ishii, video essay by Frankie Balboa
    • The Road to V-Cinema, video essay by James Balmont
    • Original trailer

     

    DISC 5 – XX: BEAUTIFUL HUNTER
    • Newly filmed introduction by Masaki Tanioka
    • The Sacred and the Profane, interview with Hiroshi Takahashi
    • They Brought Back the Sleaze, video essay by Patrick Macias
    • Original trailer

     

    Additional details
    Format: Blu-ray
    Region: 1
    Language: Japanese
    Audio: Mono, Stereo
    Runtime: approx. 795 minutes
    Discs: 5

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