Just received the 2nd Koji Wakamatsu boxset I was talking about few days ago! Here are some caps from the 4 films to give you an idea (DVDs all start with the Wakamatsu anti-piracy warning, followed by the trailer for Caterpillar).
This english-friendly boxset will be released on July 6th in France. Pre-orders are already available, so make your your choice!
• Season of Terror (1969, 76min)
Two police put a student militant under surveillance, but nothing seems to be happening except a lot of sex with his two girlfriends. They give up, too early it appears, as the student begins a revolutionary act far more extreme than anyone expected…
• Running in madness, dying in love (1969, 72min)
While clashes between demonstrators and police are raging in the streets of Tokyo, a young man takes refuge at his policeman brother’s house. The two brothers will soon come to blows, but the intervention of the policeman’s wife will prove decisive, as it will lead to the death of her husband by his own gun. The young man and the wife cover up the murder by making it look like a suicide. They become lovers and flee to the northern, least explored part of the country, as if they were being pursued by the ghost of the murdered husband, their sexual passion, and the pulse of the changing times.
• Sex Jack (1970, 69min)
Set in the near future, a small gang of revolutionary students are hidden away by a small-time thief. While they are hiding, all but the thief take turns having sex with an unhappy (and perhaps unwilling) girl who has had the misfortune to get involved with them. Through news reports, they discover that someone has been terrorizing police stations and communist headquarters in Japan just as they had hoped to do. At one point it looks like the thief may be the real revolutionary…
• Ecstasy of the Angels (1972, 89min)
That’s the only Wakamatsu film that was released on DVD in the US… But with the wrong cut (film reels were mixed). Here, this is the original japanese cut, with english subtitles.
In the early 70s in Japan, a group of young radicals named after the days of the week tries to steal weapons from a U.S Army base. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are killed. Slowly, the surviving group members realize they’ve been betrayed by their own organization, and begin to wreak sexual and political anarchy on everything in sight.
Another boxset should come out in November 2nd 2010, with these films;
- Violent Virgin (1969, b&w/color, 66’)
- Naked Bullet (1969, b&w/color, 72’)
- Violence Without A Cause (1969, b&w/color, 72’)
- Shinjuku Mad (1970, b&w/color, 66’)
And, the distributor Blaq Out/Dissidenz also owns these ones, but nothing announced right now.
- The Woman Who Wanted To Die (1970, b&w/color, 71’)
- A Pool Without Water (1982, color, 102′)
By the way, a book plus a documentary about Koji Wakamatsu is currently in the works!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, this looks fantastic! Thanks for putting up the screenshots, great service!
But what I can’t understand: Why are there English subs only on the second boxset and not on the first one? I’d have bought it already, but my French sucks…
The distributor says english subtitles weren’t ready at the time the 1st boxset was released. That’s also why they put them on VOD!
hm, I doubt that VOD will be able to make up for the lost potential in international DVD sales of the first boxset. Also, what does “not ready” mean? Either you want your product to have English subs, especially if these mean that you may be able to tap into a vastly larger international market, and then you wait until the subs are included. Or you consider them not important enough, but why then bother with it and put them on the second boxset?
The only explanation that makes sense to me would be that sales for the first boxset were below expectations and the English subs are seen as a possiblity to improve the numbers for the second boxset.
The “not-ready” explanation is rather weird, i guess they were simply expecting/hoping some US/UK/IT distributors to pick the DVD rights (just see their FB page). Including english subs in their french release will boost tremendously their sale .. but they will also make less profit from an international license sales. Tenchu sold 2000 pcs, i guess the first boxset must have sold something around 500/1000 pcs (just a guess!)
Tenchu’s sales sound relatively good to me, not that I have any real knowledge of the business. I believe many US companies have their Asian movies sales – cult titles at least – around the same numbers despite having far more potential customers. The market simply sucks.
While certainly glad about it, I am a little doubtful whether the English subs effect will be “tremendous”, though. Certainly it will boost the sales, but there are still many problems:
- Wakamatsu’s films, while artistic and political, are still seen as “obscure cult films” in most markets, rather than “classics” suitable for wider audience.
- Wakamatsu films are very widely pirated
- In today’s age many of the real movie buffs buy the originals anyway and custom sub them for their own use
- France is not an easy country to import dvds from. The prices are not that low, especially with shipping cost considered, and there are very few English friendly internet retailers. Often having to pay more than 10€ for shipping, I have a constant feeling of being ripped off by French retailers.
For the latter mentioned I would recommend the dvd published a bit of dirty strategy… to intentionally push their releases to the hands of international retailers like HK Flix (I do hate that site, but for this purpose it could be useful) to give overseas customers an easier access to their products.
Mikko, the problem with importing DVDs from France may be true for rather obscure, tiny labels or films which are out of print. But the Wakamatsu boxes are up for sale on frickin Amazon! OK, the labels on the buttons are in French, but besides that almost everything else is the same as in the UK, US or probably any other Amazon version. And delivery is free of charge even in neighbouring countries such as Belgium or Switzerland and around 4-6 Euros in most other EU-countries. Only intercontinental delivery appears to be significantly more expensive.
A bigger issue might be the availability of Wakamatsu’s films in (fan-)subbed pirated versions. I was really surprised when I found out how many of his films can just be downloaded from forums or torrent sites.
I stopped using FR amazon many years ago when they couldn’t charge my Visa card correct. Can’t remember what the shipping was back then but right now a single disc delivered to Finland would be 10€, and to Japan 15€. And the buttons are in French.
None of this is a problem for a serious movie collector wanting a title he desires. But these are they guys that are already included in the customers.
The problem here was how to increase the sales… to get those slighty more normal consumers who don’t want to shop in French language, who don’t want to pay 10-15€ for a single disc delivery, who don’t prioritize Wakamatsu box set (but might pick it up if it was easily available for them) and who want more retailer options (I hate US Amazon from the bottom of my heart and don’t know what I would do if there wasn’t any alternatives for R1 discs).
* Many (but not all) of amazon stores tend to be nice for domestic customers (I, too, love amazon.jp’s free deliveries and 25% pre-order discounts) and a lot less nice for those living on the wrong side of the world.
Personally I’m not planning to buy this box set as I’m not that much of a Wakamatsu fan. But I would like to use the VoD service. Last time I downloaded two Wakamatsu films from their website, paying about 5€ for each.
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