Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s acidly satirical and blackly comic slasher movie, The Guard From Underground (1992), is going to get a Blu-Ray release courtesy of Third Window Films.
The Guard From Underground is an early work in Kurosawa’s oeuvre, a low-budget movie made at a time when he was just launching his directorial career after working his way up from 8mm filmmaking to working on other directors titles in various production capacities before directing pink film oddities Kandagawa Pervert Wars (1983) and The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl (1985) and horror film Sweet Home (1989).
The film has been given a new lease of life thanks to a digital remaster that was screened at Tokyo International Film Festival 2022 and it will now be brought to Blu-Ray for a wider audience.
It looks absolutely fantastic with sharper images and deep colours and a clearer view of what is going on in shadowy scenes.
It will soon be available to a wider audience through Third Window Film’s Blu-Ray edition which gets released on September 25th – just over a decade on from when I reviewed the Arts Magic DVD! With that DVD hard to get, the Third Window Films release is the best way to get into the guts of a grimly fun horror film!
The story concerns Akiko Narushima (Makiko Kuno) who is on her way to a new job at Akebono Corporation where she will advise on new art purchases. Another new starter is Fujimaru (Yutaka Matsushige), a former sumo wrestler with a murderous past. Initially, her workplace problems come from her lecherous manager Kurume (Ren Osugi) and carefree head of human resources named Hyodo (Hatsunori Hasegawa) but things escalate to bloody levels when the mighty Fujimaru takes a liking to her.
This is a Region B release and it comes with a host of fantastic extras:
• New digital remaster from the original negatives
• New audio commentary by Tom Mes
• Interview with producer Takashi Ikoma
• Kiyoshi Kurosawa talk at the premiere of the new master
• Trailer
• Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju
• ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp – limited to 2000 copies
The Guard From Underground is good horror film and an essential title in Kurosawa’s development, not least because you see his horror film influences and him working with future key collaborators like Ren Osugi and Taro Suwa.
This release is also essential because it is Third Window Films’ entry point into an exciting series known as Director’s Company Collection, a line-up of films based on the releases of Japanese film production outfit Directors Company (1982-1992). Through these works, viewers will be able to get into lesser-known (in the West) but important Japanese films of the 1980s and 90s that were made outside of the studio system.
Aside from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, other big names involved in Directors Company include Sogo Ishii and Shinji Somai. So far, we know that Third Window Films will bring Somai’s Typhoon Club and Banmei Takahashi’s Door 1 and 2 to homes so expect more underknown films given shiny new digital remasters with plenty of extras, and great covers courtesy of Third Window Films.