Third Window Films Discussion Thread

[jonali]

Hoping for some 80's Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, esp. The Aimed School, The Girl Who Conquered Time and The Drifting Classroom. The first two have already gotten non-English friendly releases in Japan.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by jonali

Hoping for some 80's Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, esp. The Aimed School, The Girl Who Conquered Time and The Drifting Classroom. The first two have already gotten non-English friendly releases in Japan.

Agreed, I'm really hoping Hanagatami sold well - I've certainly been spreading the word wherever I can. I'd be happy with any more Obayashi, but I think His Motorbike, Her Island and Exchange Students would be my most wanted. Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast as well, but BBFC fees might be prohibitive - especially since there are two versions.

[thuata]

Going to place an order on the Arrow store soon to pre-order the Imamura set and get a few other things (Warning from Space, Iroshima and Second Run's Czechmate).
Two TWF releases I'm 100% sure to get as well are Hanagatami and Gemini, but I still have money left for a few more, are there lesser known (preferably idiosyncratic) films released by TWF anybody want to recommend me ?

[Justin101]

The two films recently talked about, Blue Spring and Dangan Runner are worth checking out for sure!

[thuata]

Originally Posted by Justin101

The two films recently talked about, Blue Spring and Dangan Runner are worth checking out for sure!

I've known both of them by name for a long time and they never appealed to me, but after seeing your reply I decided to read a bit about them (something I never do before watching a film) and completely changed my mind.
I'm taking a bit of a risk because I don't usually enjoy contemporary Japanese cinema, but I did like the Toyoda films in the TWF set, and Dangan Runner sounds like it has the energy of Tsukamoto or early Miike, though I'd be open to something completely different as well.
Good extras too, I'll be happy to pay full price for the four of them.

[floor pie]

Originally Posted by thuata

Going to place an order on the Arrow store soon to pre-order the Imamura set and get a few other things (Warning from Space, Iroshima and Second Run's Czechmate).
Two TWF releases I'm 100% sure to get as well are Hanagatami and Gemini, but I still have money left for a few more, are there lesser known (preferably idiosyncratic) films released by TWF anybody want to recommend me ?

I don't know which of these you might have already, but from what I own and have seen I'd recommend:

- the Toshiaki Toyoda set (very much on the idiosyncratic side, esp. 9 Souls)
- Love & Peace and Land of Hope (the latter is more of a "normal" drama) by Sion Sono
- plus of course the Kitano and Tsukamoto films, which I'm guessing you already have

[thuata]

Originally Posted by floor pie

I don't know which of these you might have already, but from what I own and have seen I'd recommend:

- the Toshiaki Toyoda set (very much on the idiosyncratic side, esp. 9 Souls)
- Love & Peace and Land of Hope (the latter is more of a "normal" drama) by Sion Sono
- plus of course the Kitano and Tsukamoto films, which I'm guessing you already have

I already have all of them
The Toyoda set is amazing and its pretty sad to see it still hasn't sold out after all this time and so many sales....
I enjoyed the two Sono Sion films you listed, but they're my least favourite thing he's done, though your reply reminded me that TWF also have The Whispering Star which I've never seen, do you have an opinion on it ?

[floor pie]

Originally Posted by thuata

I already have all of them
The Toyoda set is amazing and its pretty sad to see it still hasn't sold out after all this time and so many sales....
I enjoyed the two Sono Sion films you listed, but they're my least favourite thing he's done, though your reply reminded me that TWF also have The Whispering Star which I've never seen, do you have an opinion on it ?

No, I haven't. Those two I mentioned are the only Sono films I've seen so far. Love Exposure and Cold Fish are still waiting their turn, plus there's The Forest of Love on Netflix.

[thuata]

Originally Posted by floor pie

No, I haven't. Those two I mentioned are the only Sono films I've seen so far. Love Exposure and Cold Fish are still waiting their turn, plus there's The Forest of Love on Netflix.

I wish I could see Love Exposure for the first time again, it's an oddball masterpiece and I'm not using either attribute lightly.
I recommend you see Tag if you enjoy the surreal elements of something like Love & Peace.
Suicide Club and its prequel are also very good, I wonder why they haven't been upgraded to blu-ray yet given that the Sono Sion films seem to be decent sellers.

[Rutger Lundgren]

I was not a fan of either Suicide Club or Love & Peace, but Love Exposure is a classic for a reason.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by thuata

I wish I could see Love Exposure for the first time again, it's an oddball masterpiece and I'm not using either attributes lightly.
I recommend you see Tag if you enjoy the surreal elements of something like Love & Peace.
Suicide Club and its prequel are also very good, I wonder why they haven't been upgraded to blu-ray yet given that the Sono Sion films seem to be decent sellers.

No HD materials available for most of Sono's films such as Suicide Club, Norikos Dinner Table, Strange Circus, Hazard, etc.
Sono himself not interested in remastering them and a lot of the rights are quite messy on top of it

[thirdwindowfilms]

Very limited quantities of a lot of our out of print titles such as for love's sake, confessions, scene at the sea / getting any (slipcases), oasis, one cut of the dead collector's edition and more now at the terracotta online store.
https://terracotta-distribution.myshopify.com/

[thuata]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

Very limited quantities of a lot of our out of print titles such as for love's sake, confessions, scene at the sea / getting any (slipcases), oasis, one cut of the dead collector's edition and more now at the terracotta online store.
https://terracotta-distribution.myshopify.com/

Nice, I hadn't browsed Terracotta's store in ages, got For Love's Sake since I've never seen that one and missed out on it initially.
While I was there I also added the New Directors from Japan (wanted to get my hands on that for such a long time) and a few other non-out of print films that got my attention.



Recently cancelled my order for the upcoming Dawn of the Dead set so this is where my money is going instead

[Jonatan C.]

Originally Posted by thuata

I already have all of them
The Toyoda set is amazing and its pretty sad to see it still hasn't sold out after all this time and so many sales....
I enjoyed the two Sono Sion films you listed, but they're my least favourite thing he's done, though your reply reminded me that TWF also have The Whispering Star which I've never seen, do you have an opinion on it ?

I really like The Whispering Star. Beautiful low-cost sets, a good performance by Megumi Kagurazaka and a moving and humane little sci-fi story.

The documentary that comes with it is pretty good, too.

[Ben_C]

Had a dispatch email a little earlier from Amazon, couldn’t for the life of me remember what it might have been for...turned out it was The Taste of Tea!
Totally forgot it was coming out in early October.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Sale now on til Nov 2nd at the Arrow store!
https://arrowfilms.com/shop/shocktob...third%20window

[nabelnabel]

I picked up Taste of Tea and Fish story! Neither are on sale but I've been looking forward to them and adding them to my cart helped me save on shipping in the long run

[thuata]

I got Dangan Runner, Hanagatami, Gemini and Blue Spring as well as a few DVDs, but I'll have to wait until december to get them because of pre-orders.

[Show spoiler]

Edit : I just added The Taste of Tea and Fine totally Fine to that list.

[thuata]

Ujicha: Violence Voyager / Burning Buddha Man Blu-ray

2 pieces of Gekimation from the weird and wonderful mind of Japanese director Ujicha.

Burning Buddha Man (81 min)

There is a series of Buddha statue thefts in Kyoto. Beniko, a high school girl, gets the Buddha statue at her family’s temple stolen and has her parents killed at the same time. She needs to know what caused the death of a parents and dreams of revenge. She goes on a fantastical journey to ultimately face the demon.

Violence Voyager (83 min)

Bobby and his friend Akkun set out for the mountains to build a secret hideout. On their way, they stumble upon a mysterious amusement park called Violence Voyager. It doesn’t take long for things to get weird as the boys discover a group of scared children who can’t seem to escape and soon find themselves under attack by robot-like humanoids.

Disc 1: Violence Voyager (uncut original Japanese language version)

Interview with director Ujicha (20min)
Short Film: Tempura (4min)
Storyboards
Teaser of Ujicha’s latest film
Audio commentary from director Ujicha and producer Reo Anzai
Original Trailer

Disc 2: The Burning Buddha Man

Short Film: The Retnepac2 (16min)
Short Film: Space Yokai War (9min)
Original Trailer
Reversible sleeve artwork
Slipcase

[Show spoiler]

[qw0aszx]

Wow never thought Third Window will release Ujicha's films! I bought the Japanese blu-ray of The Burning Buddha Man back in 2018, it's a truly weird film (in a good way), looking forward to this release!