New on Blu-ray: GREAT ABSCENCE / OINARU FUZAI (2023) - Acclaimed Japanese Drama Co-Written & Directed by Kei Chika-ura

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Product Description: When working actor Takashi receives a jarring call from the police, he is forced to reconnect with his estranged father of 20 years, Yohji — an esteemed academic slipping rapidly into dementia. As Takashi attempts to piece together the mystery of Yohji’s missing wife and the fractured life his father now inhabits, their reunion uncovers long-buried tensions and unspoken grief, forcing Takashi to trace the past of his father that he has long refused to accept.

Unfolding as a meditation on loss — of time, identity, and familial closeness never fully grasped — GREAT ABSENCE is a “delicately devastating” (Variety) award-winning drama from rising star director Kei Chikaura that navigates the fragile terrain of memory, estrangement, and the quiet devastations of aging.

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New on Blu-ray: STRAY CAT ROCK - The Collection (Limited Edition)

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Product Description: The Stray Cat Rock series stars Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Blind Woman s Curse) who with these five films began her reign as the badass action queen of the era.

In these five tales of rebellious youth she stars alongside the gorgeous Bunjaku Han (Love Letter) and Tatsuya Fuji (In the Realm of the Senses). In Delinquent Girl Boss, the girl gang go up against criminal organisation the Seiyu Group, where following a fixed boxing match blood is shed and friendships are tested. In Wild Jumbo, Kaji and the gang get involved in a kidnapping and the robbery of a religious organization. In Sex Hunter Kaji s girl gang go up against The Eagles, a group led by Fuji where sex and violence erupt over the treatment of half-breeds . In Machine Animal gang rivalry is once again the focus with two gangs pursuing some LSD pushers looking to move a big score. The series swansong, Beat 71, sees Kaji framed and sent to prison by her boyfriend s father and with the help of some hippies she strives to be re-united.

Directed by genre veterans Yasuharu Hasebe (Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701 s Grudge Song) and Toshiya Fujita (Lady Snowblood) the films feature a psychedelic mix of girl gangs, bikers, sex, drugs and rock and roll with plenty of ass-kicking to boot, all captured in a delirious mash up of pop aesthetics including split screens, freeze frames, injections of colour, frenetic editing and dizzying angles, making these films a riotous joy from beginning to end.

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