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"Ju-On”: the name given to a deadly curse spawned when someone dies in the grip of a violent rage. All who come into contact with it are doomed... Collected together for the first time, writer-director Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge series represents the flesh-crawling pinnacle of Japanese chillers that swept the globe at the turn of the millennium.

The films introduce the anonymous family house in the suburbs of Tokyo where an unspeakable evil lingers alongside its residents, the ghastly mother-son pairing of Kayoko and Toshio Saeki. Shimizu’s disconcerting approach to plotting, unnerving eye for the uncanny details in the dark corners of the frame and an innate talent for effective jump scares so impressed Evil Dead director Sam Raimi that he invited the director to helm two Hollywood remakes.

The quintessential J-horror series make its Blu-ray debut with a brand new 4K restoration of Ju-On: The Grudge and a wealth of new and archival extras, including Shimizu’s two The Curse straight-to-video precursors (previously unreleased outside Japan) and the White Ghost/Black Ghost diptych of tales unfolding within the same terrifying universe.

Product Features:
Brand new 4K restoration of Ju-On: The Grudge from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation of Ju-On: The Grudge in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of all films
Home video premiere outside Japan of Ju-On: The Curse and Ju-On: The Curse 2
Original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (except The Curse and The Curse 2) and 2.0 stereo audio
Optional English subtitles
Exclusive 60-page collector’s booklet featuring writing by Grady Hendrix, James Marsh, Tom Mes, William Carroll and Lindsay Nelson [Limited Edition Exclusive]
Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Oink Creative
Twenty-four double-sided, postcard-sized artcards [Limited Edition Exclusive]
Reversible poster with new and original artwork [Limited Edition Exclusive]

DISC 1 – JU-ON: THE CURSE AND JU-ON: THE CURSE 2 (BLU-RAY)
Introduction to both films by writer-director Takashi Shimizu
Introduction to Ju-On: The Curse by actor Takako Fuji

DISC 2 & 3 – JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY / BLU-RAY)
Brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
Introduction by writer-director Takashi Shimizu
New audio commentary by film historian David Kalat
Audio commentary by Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel
Alternate English dub track in 5.1 Surround
Haunting in Monochrome, a new interview with Takashi Shimizu on the Ju-On films
Being Kayako, a new interview with Takako Fuji on her role as Kayako
The Evolution of Ju-On, a brand new featurette with authors and Japan specialists Tom Mes and Zack Davisson discussing the cultural forces that shaped the series
Through a Glass Darkly, an archive interview with Takashi Shimizu
Whispers in the Dark, an archive interview with actor Megumi Okina on her role as Rika
Fade to Black, an archive interview with actress Kayoko Shibata, who plays Mariko
On-set interviews with Takashi Shimizu, Megumi Okina, Misaki Ito, Misa Uehara and Yui Ichikawa
Deleted scenes with commentary by Takashi Shimizu
Almost an hour of behind-the-scenes footage
Ju-On True Stories, two ghostly true-life tales that inspired the films, narrated by Hiroyoshi Kihara
Original trailers
Image gallery

DISC 4 – JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2 (BLU-RAY)
Introduction by writer-director Takashi Shimizu
New audio commentary with scholar Raechel Dumas and critic Jasper Sharp
Alternate English dub track in 5.1 Surround
Interview with Takashi Shimizu from the time of making Ju-On: The Grudge 2
On-set interviews with Noriko Sakai, Chiharu Niiyama, Kei Horie, Yui Ichikawa, Emi Yamamoto and Shingo Katsurayama
Deleted scenes
55 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage
On-set reports by cast members Noriko Sakai, Yui Ichikawa and Erika Kuroishi
Premieres and stage greetings footage from Japan, Taiwan and Korea
Trailers and TV spots
Image gallery

DISC 5 – JU-ON: WHITE GHOST AND JU-ON: BLACK GHOST (BLU-RAY)
Introduction to Ju-On: Black Ghost by writer-director Mari Asato
New interview with Mari Asato
Original trailer
Image galleries

Release date: 12/12/2022
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I'm very excited about this release, which complements the Ring Collection set of a few years ago as the other big Japanese horror franchise (though I still am hoping for Arrow to go further after this and tackle the later Ring and Grudge films too, maybe in a set with Sadako vs Kayako as the centrepiece! [-o< ). This set is going to feature the original direct to video Ju-On: The Curse and Ju-On: The Curse 2 films from 2000 which started off the whole franchise. I have not had a chance to see these, but I do note that the first of those films features Chiaki Kuriyama in one segment, the same year she was in Battle Royale! Then there is the theatrical 'remake' of those with 2002's Ju-On: The Grudge. According to the details on Arrow's site it looks like Ju-On: The Grudge is going to be on UHD and Blu-ray whilst all of the other films in the set are Blu-ray. That is paired up with 2003's Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (And at that point Takashi Shimizu went on to direct the American remakes in 2004's The Grudge and 2006's The Grudge 2) Then the other two films in the set are 2009's pair of Ju-On: Black Ghost and Ju-On: White Ghost.

I keep wondering what the general reaction to these films are, because they take a kind of slasher film formula approach to their deadly hauntings (particularly in the way that only the actors playing the antagonistic ghosts remain the mainstays of the series!) and push that to such an iterative extreme. Basically every character from the most back-storied to the most tangential are doomed to certain death as soon as they set a single foot within that cursed house with no particular escape ever being on offer (which kind of turns the Ring-like investigation into the historical context for the haunting as maybe providing a chance to survive the situation into even more of a blackly comic punchline than it was in Ring!), and from that incredibly simple set up and pay off horror situation what makes this series so interesting is not particularly what happens, but how it happens to each character. Instead of an innovative or developing plot, instead the film becomes about how individual characters react and try to escape the inevitability of their upcoming meeting with doom, initially all within the confines of that (kind of iconic in horror now) house before the curse is able to expand and follow the doomed person off into the outside world as well, in order to claim them when their time is due.

I am most familiar with the 2002 first theatrical film but it seems that this holds true for most of the other entries in the series, from direct to video to the Hollywood remakes. And that is what most fascinates me about this series: that because of that very simplistic iteration around a main core location and two ghostly figures rather than feeling as if they are fundamentally detached from each other instead everything feels like it is part of one giant story. Because instead of having to follow the thread of a plot, you just slot in the latest character meeting their doom into place as just the next in line to unwisely enter the threshold of the house and face their reckoning! It probably helps that every one of those first six entries were directed by Takashi Shimizu to allow for that stiflingly claustrophobic sense of internal consistency, but I really love that idea that prequel, sequel, remake, DTV, Hollywood studio-backed: all get subsumed into one big ongoing all-consuming 'happening' that even Sarah Michelle Gellar and Bill Pullman cannot escape from!

Also because of that very simple premise that means that the films (at least the theatrical films and US remakes) immediately start playing about with timeframes and misdirections around that, where something that appears to have been taking place in the present actually occurred much earlier in the timeline of events. In the 2002 theatrical film I seem to remember a lot of that misdirection takes place around the elderly woman left alone in the house, and the police investigator nearer the end of the film, where in both cases we have to re-jig where their important ghostly encounters fit around the main plot involving the young care worker. This temporal playfulness is actually something that for me has always tied the Ju-On films in with the contemporaneous Saw series, which similarly took its simple set up and pay off premise and did really complicated (although I guess it could also be seen as just 'riffing on the fly' rather than being entirely thought through from beginning to end!) things with timeframes, parallel events and misdirections about where scenes take place within the larger timeline of events.

This was one of my most-wanted Arrow acquisitions, and it seems like the requests for it really ramped up over the past few years, as it kept appearing in their end-of-year poll (especially after the Ring Trilogy). So of course I'm really anticipating this (and had to pre-order it, no questions asked), especially as I can barely remember the second theatrical film and have never seen the initial V-cinema films. Mine set is currently on the way, not sure it'll arrive before Christmas but hoping so...Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) is perhaps my favourite modern J-horror (with only the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa rivalling it, in my opinion).

I panicked a bit because I was not aware of the set until this weekend due to rarely visiting the Arrow site and relying a bit too much on this forum to keep me up to date with the release schedules! So I impulsively pre-ordered it, especially because I have been wanting to see those 2000 films ever since picking up the theatrical features on DVD in the mid 2000s. I cannot remember off the top of my head who released Ju-On: The Grudge and Ju-On: The Grudge 2 in the UK back then, but it wasn't the usual "Asia Extreme" suspect of Tartan Video but another label (I think it may have been the "Hong Kong Legends" label trying to branch out into other areas. Which I think means that they got a somewhat incongrous pair of commentary tracks from Bey Logan stepping out of his comfort zone that unsurprisingly Arrow have not ported forward to this set), so Arrow is finally bringing this series into the fold of the classic "J-horror" cycle together with Ring, the One Missed Call series and Pulse.

If they are not going to go into the other Ring and Ju-On sequels (though I dearly hope they do now that they have tackled the core titles from both franchises), the other series that it would be great to see Arrow bring to the UK for the first time (but were released in the mid-2000s on DVD in the US by the Adness label) would be the multiple film live action adaptation of Junji Ito's Tomie series. Of which one entry (the fourth, Tomie: Re-Birth) was directed by Takashi Shimizu!

rapta wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 10:08 pmJu-on: The Grudge (2002) is perhaps my favourite modern J-horror (with only the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa rivalling it, in my opinion).

I do wonder if the moment of the television going creepily glitchy in Ju-On: The Grudge is an allusion to the similar television glitch scare in Pulse! Although they probably both bear some debt to the key ur-image of Sadako climbing out of the television in Ring!

colinr0380 wrote: Mon Dec 12, 2022 9:19 am I panicked a bit because I was not aware of the set until this weekend due to rarely visiting the Arrow site and relying a bit too much on this forum to keep me up to date with the release schedules! So I impulsively pre-ordered it, especially because I have been wanting to see those 2000 films ever since picking up the theatrical features on DVD in the mid 2000s. I cannot remember off the top of my head who released Ju-On: The Grudge and Ju-On: The Grudge 2 in the UK back then, but it wasn't the usual "Asia Extreme" suspect of Tartan Video but another label (I think it may have been the "Hong Kong Legends" label trying to branch out into other areas. Which I think means that they got a somewhat incongrous pair of commentary tracks from Bey Logan stepping out of his comfort zone that unsurprisingly Arrow have not ported forward to this set), so Arrow is finally bringing this series into the fold of the classic "J-horror" cycle together with Ring, the One Missed Call series and Pulse.

If they are not going to go into the other Ring and Ju-On sequels (though I dearly hope they do now that they have tackled the core titles from both franchises), the other series that it would be great to see Arrow bring to the UK for the first time (but were released in the mid-2000s on DVD in the US by the Adness label) would be the multiple film live action adaptation of Junji Ito's Tomie series. Of which one entry was directed by Takashi Shimizu!

rapta wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 10:08 pmJu-on: The Grudge (2002) is perhaps my favourite modern J-horror (with only the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa rivalling it, in my opinion).

I do wonder if the moment of the television going creepily glitchy in Ju-On: The Grudge is an allusion to the similar television glitch scare in Pulse! Although they probably both bear some debt to the key ur-image of Sadako climbing out of the television image in Ring!

I slightly regrettably pre-ordered from Rarewaves (only because I had a £5 voucher to use with them) and they use Royal Mail...anyway, hopefully it'll appear in the next week or so.

I have the DVDs for the first two films, and yes they were released by 'Premier Asia' who were indeed the sister label of Hong Kong Legends (who also did things like Ichi the Killer and One Missed Call). That was definitely in the days of Tartan Asia Extreme though, and probably a couple of the only non-Tartan discs I bought around that time (when exploring Asian cinema, at least). Reminds me, I have David Kalat's book on J-horror somewhere and a lot of the background is covered in that, from memory. Might re-read it when I dive into this set!

Good call on the Tomie suggestion - I've never seen any of those and actually realised recently that the first five are with Daiei (and the most recent with Toei), and it may or may not be a coincidence but Radiance recently teased a bunch of Japanese titles pencilled in for next Halloween (to which someone asked 'J-horror?' and the reply was 'maybe...'). So perhaps it could be that, seeing as Fran would've licensed from Daiei when at Arrow (e.g. Pulse, Gamera/Daimajin/Yokai Monsters, Masamura films, Miike films etc) or otherwise maybe Arrow will do those films like you say (would make sense; it's certainly the biggest series of films Daiei own that they haven't released yet).

This risks diverting off into a Tomie thread but the most recent film, 2011's Tomie: Unlimited, is probably unattainable as it already had a UK Blu-ray release a couple of years ago by Bounty Films (aka the label better known for releasing The Human Centipede series in the UK). That is the only Tomie film so far released in this country and I suspect it is less to do with the work itself, or even any cache relating to Junji Ito, but more because its director was Noburo Iguchi of extreme gore-fest Machine Girl and RoboGeisha infamy!

The first five Daiei films would make the most sense to bundle together, although personally I'd be more excited to get a chance to see the mid-2000s independently produced trilogy of titles (Tomie: Beginning, Tomie: Revenge and Tomie vs Tomie) since I missed out on the Media Blasters US DVD releases of the first two of those, and it appears that the third was an early 'straight to iTunes' title!

On the Tomie series itself, I find the original manga series (and the initial five live action films, which almost to a fault faithfully adapt a number of the episodic tales within the Tomie series to the screen) comfortably the least interesting of Junji Ito's work, being a little bit too blunt in its points about obsession and the ultimate 'tempting' girl leading on jealously possessive boys to murder and dismember her body over and over again (although the main antagonist characters in Ito's other series of stories, Dissolving Classroom and Lovesickness, are the male-centric version of a very similar idea), but always returning usually in the form of a severed head popping out of the most surprising locations! However that series appears to have been his most well known work. Or at least as well known as Uzumaki. It is also unsurprising that it became a series of live action films because its stories do not spiral into quite such nightmarish wildness that it becomes literally unfilmable (as the valiant but doomed attempt at the live action film of Uzumaki found out!), but instead does neatly fit into that 'J-horror' trend of "haunted schools filled with wet girls", as David Kalat memorably and cheekily described the genre! Just with a nastier and more uncomfortably violent edge to its spooky situations.