Criterion have announced the US DVD and Blu-Ray releases of 'Tokyo Drifter' for the 13th December, 2011. Directed by Seijun Suzuki, the film centres around a reformed killer who's attempts to go straight are squashed when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang.
Synopsis
Hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari), a cool killer in dark shades who whistles his own theme song, discovers his own mob has betrayed his code of ethics and hits the road like a questing warrior, with not one but two mobs hot on his trail. In a world of shifting loyalties Tetsu is the last honorable man, a character who might have stepped out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film and into a delirious, color-soaked landscape of a Vincent Minnelli musical turned gangster war zone. The twisting narrative takes Tetsu from deliriously gaudy nightclubs, where killers hide behind every pillar, to the beautiful snowy plains of Northern Japan and back again, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake.
Features
New high-definition digital restoration
Video interviews with director Seijun Suzuki and Masami Kuzuu
Interview with Suzuki from 1997
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Howard Hampton
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Artwork and trailer are below, and you can preorder both versions now from YesAsia.com.
