The Official Radiance Films Thread

[grahams76]

Originally Posted by LeDroitDeTuer

This is the second Raro polizio that doesn't mention a new 4K scan, the other one being Killer Cop. I wonder if this means that it'll be identical to the already released US version?

I doubt it's a new scan or it would have been mentioned. At the very least though, the compression will be infinitely better and colours more accurate if necessary. It's been over a decade since I watched the Raro US disc but a 2025 Radiance disc versus a 2013 Raro disc is no contest even if the source is old.

[CelestialAgent]

L'amour fou LE is still available from Limelight

[Ste7en]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

[CENTER]The Rapacious Jailbreaker (LE) (1974) (UK/US/CA)

[Googles Rapacious]

Looks like another interesting lineup.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Ste7en

[Googles Rapacious]

Looks like another interesting lineup.

Haha, it's quite the English title. The original Japanese title (脱獄広島殺人囚) roughly translates to "Escaped Hiroshima Murderer"

[DukeTogo84]

I think the hint BTD might be for the film The Beast to Die. If so, FANTASTIC as it's a really good and strange film, and one of the best from Matsuda. Hopefully Radiance went for it.

[deadheadbill]

Haxan is supposed to be sold out everywhere but it's available on Amazon UK, selling and shipping from Amazon for 19 gbp if anyone still needs it.

[DukeTogo84]

Finally got my January order in yesterday and jumped right into a few of the films, so figured I'd give them some mini reviews.

Was craving French so I jumped into Weak Spot. Had not heard of this film until the Radiance release, but I love me some Michel Piccoli and Mario Adorf so I figured this would be a good one. I really enjoyed this...a lot...until the last five minutes, but I'll go into that later.

A man is arrested at a cafe by the secret service due to them believing he's part of a disruptive organization. The man claims to know nothing to what they are referring to, yet they don't believe him, so they decide to take him on a road trip to an eventual destination to be tortured. He gets two agents to watch over him and the long journey begins.

That's what this movie really is, a kind of road trip, but between men who shouldn't get along, but have more in common in with each other than they would like to admit. I found all three main performances strong and throw in a nice little score from Ennio Morricone and you have a neat little film. The only minor/major issue I had was with the ending. No spoilers, but felt a bit illogical and abrupt for my tastes. I think that was supposed to be the point, but after spending so much time with the characters it just didn't feel satisfying and the only thing that really stopped me from calling this a great film. It is what it is, but overall the film flew by and really enjoyed.

As always, specs are amazing. Great release from Radiance, and hopefully more French thrillers/crime films are coming in the second half of 2025 and maybe some more films with Michel Piccoli.

[Ben_C]

I watched Weak Spot this evening too, and thought it was a decent little film - almost felt like part buddie road trip, part paranoid Euro thriller. Good performances from Tognazzi, Piccoli and Adorf as the three central characters, and a plot which very much kept a first time viewer guessing as to what was going on from the moment we see the

[Show spoiler]bloke jump off the balcony

at the very beginning (an excellently staged sequence).

The interplay between the characters was particularly interesting, when both the viewer and the other characters can’t be completely sure what to trust.

Glad I picked it up.

[LeDroitDeTuer]

The Man from Majorca was absolutely great and just what I wanted after The Man on the Roof, a reliably downbeat police procedural with solid performances by everyone including the supporting characters. I also enjoyed seeing the T-Centralen train station and other Stockholm locations throughout the movie, and I wish more films used location filming in that unique city.

I understand that these two are not representative of Bo Widerberg's general work, but I will still have to investigate his Criterion set while simultaneously seeking my fix for 80s Swedish police dramas elsewhere (recommendations welcome).

[shimmy]

Originally Posted by deadheadbill

Haxan is supposed to be sold out everywhere but it's available on Amazon UK, selling and shipping from Amazon for 19 gbp if anyone still needs it.

Im waiting for a version without the box, my shelves are almost bursting at the seems.

[knuckles96]

Just ordered all the Raro Video titles

[fatboyslim142]

Originally Posted by shimmy

Im waiting for a version without the box, my shelves are almost bursting at the seems.

Just buy the LE release & flog it for loads once the standard edition is released.

[rapta]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I think the hint BTD might be for the film The Beast to Die. If so, FANTASTIC as it's a really good and strange film, and one of the best from Matsuda. Hopefully Radiance went for it.

Good guess. I'm wondering also if 'TAT' could be Yamashita's The Tattooed Hitman? Seems like it could be, considering Big Time Gambling Boss was one of the initial releases.

Just had another thought, could the 'TOO' clue be for Kato's The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost? Might make sense with the recent newsletter clue as well ('Next month, the ghost is back!').

PS: Forgot to also mention that Visconti's La terra trema is mentioned in the blurb for The Railroad Man, which may or may not be confirming the 'LTT' clue later in the year...and I wonder also if 'SEN' is for Visconti's Senso too? I know Criterion released the latter already, but could be for a 4K release this time.

[Mosin-Nagant]

I noted a small change on the Scanavo cases present in the Daiei Gothic - Japanese Ghost Stories box set. The clip used to secure the disc is different : more flexible, less robust...



... and I tend to regret it because I have noticed that it is easier to leave ghost (no pun intended) marks on the back of the cover if you press too hard when removing the disc. I prefer this one :



This is obviously 1000% nitpicking but I wanted to share my neurosis with all of you here.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by rapta

Just had another thought, could the 'TOO' clue be for Kato's The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost? Might make sense with the recent newsletter clue as well ('Next month, the ghost is back!').

I'd love for this one to get a release from Radiance, but I'd imagine the clue would have been TOG as I can't see Fran putting precedent on the word "of" over "ghost".

Still, the phrase that the ghost is back, makes sense as I'm assuming it's for a ghost film or a film with a character named ghost?

[rapta]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I'd love for this one to get a release from Radiance, but I'd imagine the clue would have been TOG as I can't see Fran putting precedent on the word "of" over "ghost".

Still, the phrase that the ghost is back, makes sense as I'm assuming it's for a ghost film or a film with a character named ghost?

I did think that too, but there are inconsistencies with previous clues, and a couple with 'of' used. For example:

POV - Planet of the Vampires
SU - Sympathy for the Underdog
SOA - The Story of Adele H.
SMPO - Slap the Monster on Page One
PY0 - Panic in Year Zero
JCB - Japan Organised Crime Boss
ATOS - A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
GWS - Girl with a Suitcase

Anyway, we'll see next month of course but it would seem the clue list was in some kind of rough order (from left-to-right) despite what was said on the Discord.

My current predictions for the teasers so far are therefore:

[Show spoiler]PAL - Palindromes (Solondz) - delayed?
TOO - The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost (Kato)
WN3 - World Noir Vol. 3
IMS - In My Skin (de Van)
ROS - Rosi? (e.g. Illustrious Corpses, Lucky Luciano, The Moment of Truth, Many Wars Ago) / Rossellini (e.g. Il generale Della Rovere, Escape by Night)? Rosetta (Dardennes)?
TAT - The Tattooed Hitman (Yamashita)
OSHIMA - Oshima box set
SHIN - Shinobi Vol. 2
LTT - La terra trema (Visconti)
POL - Pola X (Carax) / Police (Pialat)
BTD - The Beast to Die (Murakawa)
HIS - Histoire(s) du cinema (Godard)
DAI - Daiei Gothic Vol. 2
MAL - Malicious (Samperi)
DAU - Daughters of Darkness (Kümel)
BET - The Betrayal (Tanaka)
SEN - Senso (Visconti)
NB - Le notti bianche (Visconti)
WNN - World Neo-Noir?

But also not forgetting there were still a few clues left from last year (have they been cancelled, or just rescheduled?):

[Show spoiler]PDC - Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Terayama) / Puzzle of a Downfall Child (Schatzberg)
MH - Manhunt (Sato) / Melvin and Howard (Demme)
RB - Robert Bresson? (Lancelot du lac / The Devil, Probably)
SM (box set) - Souls in the Moonlight Trilogy (Uchida)

[T4ffer]

I really need to catch up and then join the speculation train... I am about 37 movies behind with the Radiance release watches, but as soon as I finish one of my other projects I will switch to Radiance catch-up mode.

[Cinematt]

If they have got The Tattooed Hitman I really hope they have secured the US version as well, which for... reasons... was picked up by Jack Sholder - director of Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - to supervise a new cut and dub.
It's a good film though, written by Koichi Iiboshi who wrote the novel Battles Without Honour and Humanity was based on, and with Bunta Sugawara leading a stacked cast of Toei favourites.

[logboy]

Originally Posted by rapta

Anyway, we'll see next month of course but it would seem the clue list was in some kind of rough order (from left-to-right) despite what was said on the Discord.

My current predictions for the teasers so far are therefore:

[Show spoiler]PAL - Palindromes (Solondz) - delayed?
TOO - The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost (Kato)
WN3 - World Noir Vol. 3
IMS - In My Skin (de Van)
ROS - Rosi? (e.g. Illustrious Corpses, Lucky Luciano, The Moment of Truth, Many Wars Ago) / Rossellini (e.g. Il generale Della Rovere, Escape by Night)? Rosetta (Dardennes)?
TAT - The Tattooed Hitman (Yamashita)
OSHIMA - Oshima box set
SHIN - Shinobi Vol. 2
LTT - La terra trema (Visconti)
POL - Pola X (Carax) / Police (Pialat)
BTD - The Beast to Die (Murakawa)
HIS - Histoire(s) du cinema (Godard)
DAI - Daiei Gothic Vol. 2
MAL - Malicious (Samperi)
DAU - Daughters of Darkness (Kümel)
BET - The Betrayal (Tanaka)
SEN - Senso (Visconti)
NB - Le notti bianche (Visconti)
WNN - World Neo-Noir?

there's a few more tempting ones in there; i'm glad i've figured out how to take advantage of long lead times from announcement to release to plan those i'm on the edge about, as there's a few japanese ones to come i'm not entirely sold on.

the tai kato ones from last year are amongst my favourites in years from any label - not only because they're good / great / fantastic to varying degrees, but because they're less obvious and refreshing because of it - and i'd like more of those, even if i'm also increasingly sensitive to how things now look like stagnation rather than surprising, as they would have done initially when radiance appeared.

daiei gothic part two would go down well with me, but not sure on what could be in it - those in the first set are highly rated on reviews showing on japanese sites, and i can't see what else is. amazon japan has all those from the first set as right up there, so the recommendations below those might give some clues.

does anyone follow the licensor information i think can be found on radiance's artwork to look into what's also available from them?

what about hayley scanlon's reviews in case she's scoping stuff that she ends up working on?

for example, tai kato : https://windowsonworlds.com/tag/tai-kato/ - plus, the tattooed hitman, the beast to die are also reviewed on there.

... there's another criteria which i believe makes films more eligible for radiance, and that might be those that are easily found in fansubbed form.

[Garmonbozia_]

Originally Posted by rapta

My current predictions for the teasers so far are therefore:

[Show spoiler]PAL - Palindromes (Solondz) - delayed?
TOO - The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost (Kato)
WN3 - World Noir Vol. 3
IMS - In My Skin (de Van)
ROS - Rosi? (e.g. Illustrious Corpses, Lucky Luciano, The Moment of Truth, Many Wars Ago) / Rossellini (e.g. Il generale Della Rovere, Escape by Night)? Rosetta (Dardennes)?
TAT - The Tattooed Hitman (Yamashita)
OSHIMA - Oshima box set
SHIN - Shinobi Vol. 2
LTT - La terra trema (Visconti)
POL - Pola X (Carax) / Police (Pialat)
BTD - The Beast to Die (Murakawa)
HIS - Histoire(s) du cinema (Godard)
DAI - Daiei Gothic Vol. 2
MAL - Malicious (Samperi)
DAU - Daughters of Darkness (Kümel)
BET - The Betrayal (Tanaka)
SEN - Senso (Visconti)
NB - Le notti bianche (Visconti)
WNN - World Neo-Noir?

But also not forgetting there were still a few clues left from last year (have they been cancelled, or just rescheduled?):

[Show spoiler]PDC - Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Terayama) / Puzzle of a Downfall Child (Schatzberg)
MH - Manhunt (Sato) / Melvin and Howard (Demme)
RB - Robert Bresson? (Lancelot du lac / The Devil, Probably)
SM (box set) - Souls in the Moonlight Trilogy (Uchida)

Good predictions. I hope you're right about ROS.. especially for illustrious corpses which is an amazing film. Otherwise, I was thinking of There's Always Tomorrow for TAT. No Uk release if I'm correct