RELEASE DATE: December 8, 2015

Arrow Films will be releasing Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity Blu-ray Collection. This limited edition collection (3000 units) includes all 6 films, plus an endless list of supplemental features. I think Arrow just made Kyle Warner’s day…

The following is a press release from Arrow Films:

Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) gave the world Japan’s answer to The Godfather with this violent yakuza saga, influencing filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill) to Takashi Miike (Graveyard of Honor, Audition). Made within just two years, the five-film series brought a new kind of realism and ferocity to the crime genre in Japan, revitalizing the industry and leading to unprecedented commercial and critical success.

Literally exploding onscreen with a mushroom cloud, and ending with Hiroshima’s A-bomb Dome, the epic story of Battles Without Honour and Humanity follows over 100 characters through twenty years of gang wars, alliances, betrayals, and assassinations, in an exciting exploration of criminal power and politics in Japan.

In the opening episode, ex-soldier Shozo Hirono escapes from the post-war black markets to become a key member of the Yamamori gang, but soon finds himself disillusioned by the selfish duplicity of his bosses. Hiroshima Death Match focuses on a demobilized kamikaze pilot drifting through the early 1950’s, whose suicidal impulses find good use as a mob assassin. Proxy War and Police Tactics form a labyrinthine, two-part story of ambition and betrayal set against Japan’s rapid economic growth of the 1960’s, with Shozo caught between warring factions. Final Episode concludes the series in the 1970’s as the former Yamamori gang transforms itself into an economic conglomerate called the Tensei Group, in a bid for mainstream respectability.

Fukasaku and his team broke with the longstanding studio tradition of casting marquee idols as honorable, kimono-clad heroes, defending their gang bosses against unscrupulous villains, and instead adapted true accounts torn from the headlines, shot in a documentary-like style, and with few clear-cut heroes or villains. The vibrancy and dynamism of the filmmaking, plus its shocking violence, Shakespearean plotlines, and wide tapestry of characters, launched a revolutionary new genre, establishing the series as one of the great masterpieces of world crime cinema.

Limited Edition Contents

Limited Edition Blu-ray Collection

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of all five original films

Original Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)

Optional English subtitles for all five films

Remembering Kinji – a new featurette about director Kinji Fukasaku and his work, featuring interviews with Kenta Fukasaku and film critic and Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane

Secrets of the Piranha Army – a new documentary about the troupe of supporting actors who appeared throughout the series, featuring new interviews with original Piranha members Masaru Shiga and Takashi Noguchi, plus second-generation Piranha, Takashi Nishina and Akira Murota

All the Bad Guys – a new, comprehensive video guide to the actors in the films

Fukasaku Family – a new interview with Proxy War and Police Tactics assistant director Toru Dobashi

Man of Action – a new interview with series fight choreographer Ryuzo Ueno

Tales of a Bit Player – a new interview with supporting actor and stuntman Seizo Fukumoto

Last Days of the Boss – a new interview with Final Episode screenwriter Koji Takada

Yakuza Graveyard – a new interview with Takashi Miike about Kinji Fukasaku and the yakuza film genre

Original trailers for the series

Original poster gallery for the series

Limited Edition packaging and reversible sleeves for all five films including original and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist

The Complete Saga [Limited Edition Exclusive]

English-subtitled premiere of the 224-minute compilation edition of the first four films, previously screened only as part of a limited Japanese theatrical release in 1980 and on the Toei cable channel

Introduction by Complete Saga editorial supervisor Toru Dobashi

The Yakuza Papers [Limited Edition Exclusive]

150-page hardback book featuring writing on the history of the yakuza film genre, the background and continuing importance of the Battles series, and additional essays on the men who made them, including a newly-reprinted and fully annotated edition of Paul Schrader’s classic 1974 Film Comment essay Yakuza-Eiga: A Primer, a new, exclusive English translation of screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara’s 1974 Scenario magazine essay on his writing process for the first four films, as well as new essays and interviews from critics and authors Chris D., Grady Hendrix, Patrick Macias, Tom Mes, Mark Schilling, and Jasper Sharp.

Pre-order the Battles Without Honour and Humanity Collection today!