Over in London Arrow Video decided to launch their latest box set at funkiest underground bar in the big smoke, PIMP SHUEI. We got a first look at the Kinji Fukasaku New Battles Without Honour and Humanity trilogy with the back drop of retro games, classic posters in a den fitting for a Yakuza fight scene. Take a look at the photos below and put it on your list of places to visit on vacation. Arrow Video release the set in the UK on August 21.
NEW BATTLES WITHOUT HONOUR AND HUMANITY (1974)
1950. In Kure City in Hiroshima, an ambitious yakuza soldier botches an attempt on the life of a rival boss, and is sent to prison for eight years. When he’s released, he must choose between returning to the gangster fold, or life with a beautiful, half-Korean hostess who’s fallen for him.
NEW BATTLES WITHOUT HONOUR AND HUMANITY: THE BOSS’S HEAD (1975)
1968. Gang boss Owada takes in wanderer and assassin Shuji Kuroda after he does time for the assassination of a rival boss. Kuroda turns on Owada after he doesn’t get the promised payback for his jail time, and lays waste to the local crime elements in order to achieve his financial rewards.
NEW BATTLES WITHOUT HONOUR AND HUMANITY: LAST DAYS OF THE BOSS (1976)
1976. When a top boss is killed during a full-blown gang war, his adopted son, an ordinary laborer, reluctantly joins the criminal world in quest for vengeance for his benefactor’s death. Complicating matters are his younger sister and her gangster husband, who are affiliated with the gang responsible for the killing.
Special Features:
· High Definition digital transfers of all three films
· High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
· Original uncompressed mono audio
· New optional English subtitle translation for all three films
· Beyond the Films – New Battles without Honor and Humanity: a new video appreciation by Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane
· New Stories, New Battles and Closing Stories: two new video interviews with screenwriter Koji Takada, about his work on the second and third films in the trilogy
· Original theatrical teasers and trailers for all three films
· Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist
· Illustrated collector’s book featuring new writing on the films, the yakuza genre and Fukasaku’s career, by Stephen Sarrazin, Tom Mes, Hayley Scanlon, Chris D., Marc Walkow, and Toshiko Adilman
