August 2025 Film Round-up

Time for a bit of good news with an August film announcement round-up!

I had missed to note Radiances Daiei Gothic Vol 2 release, their second Japanese Ghost Stories announcement some weeks ago – so here it is, the set comprising The Demon of Mount Oe, The Haunted Castle and The Ghost of Kasane Swamp. If this is anything like the first set then it’s going to a very pleasurable triad of films indeed. They’ll be arriving to spook us in October. 

Another collection, Radical Japan - Cinema and State, is described as one of the most vital, challenging and admired bodies of work in cinema history, containing seven films from Nagisa Oshima. TExtras include a new interview with Tony Rayns, actors Tadanori Yokoo and Kazuo Goto, and a 160-page book packed with new and archival writing. All this goodness arrives November 17th.

The BFI have been drip-feeding us Akira Kurosawa 4K Restorations, and have announced an update to their Akira Kurosawa Samurai Collection – upgrading it to a blu-ray of the 4K restorations. It appears to be a standard blu-ray not 4K disc version and will there be a further update? Who knows - but nevertheless, restorations of Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro in one snazzy set, it doesn’t get much better and will be slashing it's way into stores in November. 

And finally, it's been teased and teased by Third Window, and just to taunt us they’ve posted to social media an image check disc of the first of Kaizo Hayashi’s Maiku Hama films The Most Terrible Time in my Life. When will we hear of its official release date? Another: who knows? But when we do we’ll share it because this writer is checking his inbox waiting for the press release as this is an important release of a fabulous film. And I for one need to know!

Want to learn more? Yes. Good.

Daiei Gothic Vol 2

In The Demon of Mount Oe, a group of mighty warriors is sent to eliminate a demon who steals women from the imperial capital of Kyoto. On the way, they face a satanic bull, a giant spider and a diabolical witch, but the closer they come to their goal, the more they realise that the demon they’ve been ordered to kill is far more human than they were led to believe.

In The Haunted Castle, a blind monk is killed in a cowardly manner by a samurai lord. When the monk’s sister is ordered to become the lord’s concubine, she commits suicide and transfers her grudge to their black cat, who assumes the human form of one of the lord’s ladies-in-waiting and begins to wreak havoc around the castle court. The lord’s Machiavellian right-hand man (Rokko Toura, Kuroneko) and a young swordsman (Kojiro Hongo, The Bride from Hades) combine forces to solve the mystery and stop the supernatural menace.

In The Ghost of Kasane Swamp a samurai’s wife tries to repay her husband’s debt with her body but is caught in bed with the money lender and they are both murdered by her husband who dumps their bodies in a nearby swamp. Shingoro and Oshiga, the money lender and samurai’s children, find a curse has been passed to them as they each try to recover the money. 

Radical Japan

In The Catch (1961), a village in World War II is shaken by the capture of a pilot; in Death by Hanging (1968), a failed execution throws the justice system into disarray; Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969) strikingly captures Tokyo’s 1960s counter-culture; Boy (1969) is a vivid portrait of a family surviving through scams; The Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970), Oshima’s reaction to the protest movement; The Ceremony (1971), a meditation on how traditions oppress the young; and Dear Summer Sister (1972), which questions Japan’s colonial relation to Okinawa.

If you want to pre-order the Kurosawa 4K Restorations at a very reasonable price, then grab it here.