December Film Announcements (so far)

Time to recap a couple of recent physical media releases, starting with the welcome news of Shohei Imamura's Plame D'or winning The Eel, in it's global blu-ray first.  Radiance again showing it's building a roster of impressive releases, and The Eel will slipping its way to us in March.

Next up, Arrow's February release of Kazuo Mori's A Certain Killer and  A Killer's Key, a pair of thrillers co-written by Yasuzo Masumura, a pair that seems to be a must for fans of the great Branded to Kill.

Synopses provided by Radiance and Arrow.

The Eel

After serving time in prison for murdering his unfaithful wife, Yamashita (Koji Yakusho, Perfect Days, Cure) is released on parole, accompanied only by his pet eel. Hoping to stay out of trouble, he takes over a rural barber shop that quickly becomes a gathering point for the eccentric locals. However, the discovery of a woman’s failed suicide starts a chain reaction that brings back past demons - and not just his own. The Eel won master filmmaker Shohei Imamura his second Palme d’Or, after 1983’s The Ballad of Narayama and was the breakthrough of its star Yakusho.

A Certain Killer/ A Killer's Key

In A Certain Killer, Shiozaki's low-profile existence as a chef at a local sushi restaurant serves as a front for his true job as a professional assassin whose modus operandi is poisoned needles. He's approached by Maeda, a low-ranking member of a local yakuza group, to take out a rival gang boss. But the sudden arrival into his life of a spirited young woman, Keiko (Yumiko Nogawa, Gate of Flesh), has dramatic ramifications on his relationship with his new employer. Ichikawa's lone wolf assassin is back in A Killer’s Key, this time masquerading as a traditional dance instructor named Nitta who is called in to avert a potential financial scandal that threatens to engulf a powerful yakuza group with ties to powerful figures in the political establishment.