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]

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

C$89.99

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

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