criterionforum.org

Volume 1: Seijun Rising: The Youth Movies Limited Edition

YOUTHS ON THE LOOSE AND REBELS WITHOUT CAUSES IN THE UNRULY SEISHUN EIGA YOUTH MOVIES OF JAPANESE ICONOCLAST SEIJUN SUZUKI

Making their home-video debuts outside Japan, this diverse selection of Nikkatsu youth movies (seishun eiga) charts the evolving style of the B-movie maverick best known for the cult classics Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967).

The Boy Who Came Back (1958) marks the first appearances of “Nikkatsu Diamond Guys” and regular Suzuki collaborators Akira Kobayashi and Jo Shishido, with Kobayashi cast as the hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past. The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass (1961) is a carnivalesque tale of a young student who hooks up with a down-at-heels travelling circus troupe. Teenage Yakuza (1962) stars Tamio Kawaji as the high-school vigilante protecting his community from the extortions of mobsters from a neighbouring city. The Incorrigible (1963) and Born Under Crossed Stars (1965), both based on Toko Kon’s novels about young love, represent Suzuki’s first films set in the 1920s era later celebrated in his critically-regarded Taisho Trilogy.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:

• Limited Edition Dual Format Collection [3000 copies]
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation
• Optional English Subtitles
• New introduction to the films by critic Tony Rayns
• 60-page illustrated collector's book featuring new writing by critic and author Jasper Sharp



November 27

This sound good and well, but if there is a volume 2 which is a late 60s one, that sounds like where things go crazy!

Unless there is some gold in the early Suzuki i'm missing out on? I'm really only familiar with the films he has released outside the Criterion and the other Nikkatsu flicks released by Arrow.

Banasa wrote:This sound good and well, but if there is a volume 2 which is a late 60s one, that sounds like where things go crazy!

Unless there is some gold in the early Suzuki i'm missing out on? I'm really only familiar with the films he has released outside the Criterion and the other Nikkatsu flicks released by Arrow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this will be the first time these films will be available with English subtitles. So this is a great release for a lot of us to discover these titles.

Correction: Akutaro AKA The Bastard AKA Incorrigible can be found with english subs.

I think there's just going to be more Early Suzuki volumes. What a world we live in, where early Suzuki will be better treated on home video than mid period Suzuki!

I'm surprised this isn't coming from the Arrow Academy line.

Nice to see more Suzuki on blu....hopefully a box of his 50s output is in the works.

Glowingwabbit wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this will be the first time these films will be available with English subtitles. So this is a great release for a lot of us to discover these titles.

Correction: Akutaro AKA The Bastard AKA Incorrigible can be found with english subs.

No no, I don't believe any of these is not exciting but I'm just going on my (possibly/probably faulty) knowledge that Suzuki is primarily gets into gear of what people know Seijun Suzuki for in a post-Youth of the Beast films.

Without a doubt, I'm very happy to hear about films getting released that have not been available previously.

Based on the wording of the description, I'd say it's likely that the second set which is presumably being prepared will also be films from before Tokyo Drifter. Maybe just crime films or something like that?

Glowingwabbit wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this will be the first time these films will be available with English subtitles.

Correction: Akutaro AKA The Bastard AKA Incorrigible can be found with english subs.

Most of these don't seem to have had any physical release in Japan either so I imagine there might be some (reverse) importing going on when this is released.

Interesting that this is termed Vol. 1 and 'The Early Years' since, according to jmdb, he only made more 4 films at Nikkatsu after Born Under Crossed Stars (1965) before before being fired after making his fifth, Branded to Kill.

Hopefully any following volumes might also include some of his other pre-1965 films too, along with of course, a long-awaited UK release of Tokyo Drifter.

Either way, an amazing release and I'm so glad enough people seem to be buying the pulp Japanese films that we can get more releases!

edit:

Ribs wrote:Based on the wording of the description, I'd say it's likely that the second set which is presumably being prepared will also be films from before Tokyo Drifter. Maybe just crime films or something like that?

That would be an interesting idea, themed sets rather than chronological ones. Certainly a noir/crime set with Underworld Beauty would be much appreciated!

The name "the youth movies" seem to indicate that they'll be grouped by theme rather than chronologically.

Banasa wrote:This sound good and well, but if there is a volume 2 which is a late 60s one, that sounds like where things go crazy!

If that's their plan then they made a huge gaffe calling the series "Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years"!

zedz wrote:

Banasa wrote:This sound good and well, but if there is a volume 2 which is a late 60s one, that sounds like where things go crazy!

If that's their plan then they made a huge gaffe calling the series "Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years"!

I guess it still is technically the early years: it's the first decade of a six-decade career, so that's what they're probably using to justify the "early" qualifier. He just happens to have made more than 30 films in the first decade and fewer than 10 in the last five.

Ribs wrote:Based on the wording of the description, I'd say it's likely that the second set which is presumably being prepared will also be films from before Tokyo Drifter. Maybe just crime films or something like that?

Considering there are only two films after Tokyo Drifter and before Suzuki went into the wilderness, and Arrow has already released one of them, that's a very safe bet. People seem to have some rather peculiar ideas about the shape of his career.

I'm pretty sure this series will focus on the dozens of films he made in the fifties and first half of the sixties that have never been released with English subs or are long out of print, which as far as I'm concerned is the best use of Arrow's resources.

senseabove wrote:

zedz wrote:

Banasa wrote:This sound good and well, but if there is a volume 2 which is a late 60s one, that sounds like where things go crazy!

If that's their plan then they made a huge gaffe calling the series "Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years"!

I guess it still is technically the early years: it's the first decade of a six-decade career, so that's what they're probably using to justify the "early" qualifier. He just happens to have made more than 30 films in the first decade and fewer than 10 in the last five.

I think that's really torturing semantics, and you should be looking at it more as forty features into a fifty feature career. It's not as if anybody would expect a collection called The Rolling Stones: The Early Years to include Goat's Head Soup.

Delayed to 8 January

According to the Arrow newsletter, the UK version of this is 95% sold out!

zedz wrote:I think that's really torturing semantics, and you should be looking at it more as forty features into a fifty feature career. It's not as if anybody would expect a collection called The Rolling Stones: The Early Years to include Goat's Head Soup.

Although a crucial difference is that the Rolling Stones were globally famous nearly a decade before Goat's Head Soup was released. When did Suzuki make any impression outside Japan?

Ribs wrote:According to the Arrow newsletter, the UK version of this is 95% sold out!

It wasn't even mentioned in the US newsletter.

Ribs wrote:According to the Arrow newsletter, the UK version of this is 95% sold out!

Does this reflect stock allocation to retailers or only applies to the Arrow store? I was waiting for a sale to get double points, but I might have to bite the bullet sooner than I expected!

I'd say there's a relatively good chance it's an error, considering it's right above another entry that also has 95% and it gets the name of the set wrong (it's listed as Suzuki Rising). That, and it'd be a huge break from form for an Arrow set of this particular nature to sell out like this.

If the set is another cardboard Rubik’s Cube abomination similar to Stray Cat Rock and Outlaw: Gangster VIP collections then I’ll pass.

I hope that's a mistake as I am very much looking forward to getting this and the Godard in the coming sale.

L.A. wrote:If the set is another cardboard Rubik’s Cube abomination similar to Stray Cat Rock and Outlaw: Gangster VIP collections then I’ll pass.

Yeah, because what really matters is the packaging. Nobody cool really watches films any more.

Whatever happened to people saying they would buy things even if they were, say, packaged in a wet paper bag?

swo17 wrote:Whatever happened to people saying they would buy things even if they were, say, packaged in a wet paper bag?

<puts hand up> I'm still here.