Third Window Films

[Calvin]

Impressive lineup. Is Director’s Company a new line for them?

That's my understanding, though I'm not sure how many more there will be as the Director's Company didn't produce *that* many films and I think the distribution rights for some are still tied up with the bigger studios.

I asked Adam about the earlier Kurosawas and he said that he was thinking about "The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Girl, but to be honest, it's not really that good...
Will focus on more of the higher profile and better Director's Company films first!"

[dadaistnun]

The Guard from Underground and Door (and presumably Typhoon Club as well; I'm waiting for the Cinema Guild release) have liner notes from Jasper Sharp giving a brief history of the Director's Company. The concluding passage states:

Since its collapse, many of the Director's Company's productions had remained in a rights limbo and the whereabouts of their original elements unknown, but in 2021 an ex-producer of the Director's Company named Takashi Ikoma discovered a large amount of long-lost negatives of Director's Company films, cleared the rights, remastered them and made them available for us all to watch today in high definition.

No indication of which films those might be, but here is a (complete?) list of titles that emerged from the company included in the notes:

Wolf: Running is Sex (Banmei Takahashi, 1982)
Farewell Love: Rock is Sex (Ryudo Uzaki, 1982)
Harlem Valentine Day: Blood is Sex (Shigeru Izumiya, 1982)
Kandagawa Pervert Wars (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1983)
Mermaid's Legend (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1984)
Crazy Family (Sogo Ishii, 1984)
Love Hotel (Shinji Somai, 1985)
Typhoon Club (Shinji Somai, 1985)
Bumpkin Soup (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1985) (Sharp uses the The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl title in his notes)
Scent of a Spell (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1985)
Inujini Seshi Mono (Kazuyuki Izutsu, 1986)
Halber Mensch (Sogo Ishii, 1986)
House of Wedlock (Kichitaro Negishi, 1986)
Luminous Woman (Shinji Somai, 1987)
Half of Eternity (Kichitaro Negishi, 1987)
Door (Banmei Takahashi, 1988)
Evil Dead Trap (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1988)
Yojo no jidai (Shunichi Nagasaki, 1988)
Dangerous Stories (Kazuyuki Izutsu, Banmei Takahashi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1989)
Tokyo Heaven (Shinji Somai, 1990)
Maria's Stomach (Hideyuki Hirayama, 1990)
Popcorn Love (Hironari Yano & Takeo Moriyasu, 1990)
Mo no Shigoto (Takumi Kimizuka, 1991)
Manatsu no Chikyu (Osamu Murakami, 1991)
Kaze, Slow Down (Shinsuke Shimada, 1991)
Misty(Toshiharu Ikeda, 1991)
Travels in the Orient (Kazuyuki Izutsu, 1992)
The Guard From Underground (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1992)

[Finch]

The Crazy Family (1984) got certified by the BBFC for home video release, and TWF handled all previous recent Sogo Ishii titles so it's quite likely coming from them (or Arrow).

[Adam X]

I just listened to a recent TWF podcast episode where it was mentioned work was being done to clear this for a release in relation to their Director's Company series, so I'm glad this has come to fruition (Third Window are listed as the distributor).

[colinr0380]

Shamelessly cribbing all of the details from Neo magazine relating to Third Window releases: back on 12th February they released River on Blu-ray, which is the most recent (2023) film from the writer and director duo behind Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes. Also released this month is Mad Cats. And One Percenter is due for release on 11th March. The Crazy Family is coming "in Spring".

In their "live action preview" section Neo mentions two further Shinji Somai films are coming: 1987's Luminous Woman "at the end of April", and 1985's Love Hotel (with a script from Angel Guts creator Takashi Ishii!) "at the end of June". Plus Shinya Tsukamoto's latest feature, Shadow of Fire, is going to be "screened in cinemas around the UK as part of the Japan Foundation touring programme, which runs from February to April, before coming to Blu-ray and digital in September".

[Calvin]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Bumpkin Soup (aka The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl) will also be coming from Third Window as part of the Directors' Company line

[Finch]

More Director's Company films from TWF: Luminous Woman, Love Hotel and The Crazy Family



This strange work from Shinji Somai (Typhoon Club) is presented with a brand new 2K restoration from the original negatives

A burly hulk of a man (pro-wrestler Keiji Muto) makes his way from Hokkaido to the decrepit trash heaps of outer Tokyo in a quest to find his beloved fiance, but meets a nightclub diva who has lost the ability to sing. When he finds himself pulled into the gladiator pits of a Tokyo nightclub, the mountain man agrees to fight in exchange for information on his lost love, yet also finds himself drawn to the various pulls of the big city.

BLU-RAY CONTENTS
• New 2k remaster from the original negatives
• Making Of (50 minutes)
• Deleted Scenes (50 minutes)
• Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp - limited to 2000 copies



After mainstream success, Shinji Somai (Typhoon Club) returned to his Nikkatsu roots for this mournful Roman Porno scripted by Takashi Ishii (writer of Evil Dead Trap and director of Gonin). After Tetsuro loses his business, the yakuza collect his debt in the most violent, shocking way imaginable. Honorably, he divorces his wife and becomes a taxi driver. Existing bereft of meaning or support, he eventually encounters Nami, a part-time prostitute who has undergone similar tribulations. An existential study of two lonely and tortured souls, Somai’s melancholic roman porno follows the pair as they kindle a newfound friendship amid the chaos of their broken and dispirited lives.

BLU-RAY CONTENTS

• Feature length audio commentary by Jasper Sharp
• Shinji Somai at the Director’s Company: Video essay by Josh Slater-Williams
• Archival interview with actor Minori Terada and assistant director Koji Enokido
• Original Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp - limited to 2000 copies



From the director of Electric Dragon 80000v, Crazy Thunder Road and Burst City

The Kobayashi family finally are able to move out of their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment to the suburban house of their dreams. But things are not as perfect as they seem: the house is infested by termites and the family starts going crazy. As the Kobayashis’ house begins to crumble, so does the sanity of its inhabitants. Katsuhiko takes it upon himself to keep them from the asylum…at any cost.

BLU-RAY CONTENTS
• Director approved remaster from the original negatives
• Feature length audio commentary by Tom Mes
• Director Gakuryu (exSogo) Ishii interview
• “The Crazy Family: Sogo Ishii’s Wild Child” Video essay by James Balmont
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp - limited to 2000 copies

[colinr0380]

That write up for Love Hotel makes it sound extremely similar to the first film that Takashi Ishii directed (and wrote, from his manga series), 1988's Angel Guts: Red Vertigo, down to Ishii's regular names for his main characters in Nami Tsuchiya and Tetsuro Muraki. All of the Angel Guts films are about doomed, insular couplings taking place against the backdrop of an uncaring (if not actively malicious) wider world, and that aspect only got underlined once he was directing his own material as well.