Blu-ray release: ‘A Certain Killer’ & ‘A Killer’s Key’

By   |  Jan 23, 2025

Arrow Video are bringing two Japanese crime thrillers directed by Kazuo Mori – ‘A Certain Killer’ (ある殺し屋) and ‘A Killer’s Key’ (ある殺し屋の鍵) – to US and UK Blu-ray on February 10/11, 2025.

Anticipating the cool aesthetic of Seijun Suzuki’s ‘Branded to Kill’ and based on a crime novel by Shinji Fujiwara, the author of the original material for the same year’s ‘A Colt is My Passport’, ‘A Certain Killer’ and ‘A Killer’s Key’ are similarly stylish contemporary hitman thrillers directed by Daiei’s top director of jidai-geki, Kazuo Mori and starring the studio’s top actor Raizo Ichikawa.

In ‘A Certain Killer’, Shiozaki’s low-profile existence as a chef at a local sushi restaurant serves as a front for his true job as a professional assassin whose modus operandi is poisoned needles. He’s approached by Maeda, a low-ranking member of a local yakuza group, to take out a rival gang boss. But the sudden arrival into his life of a spirited young woman, Keiko (Yumiko Nogawa), has dramatic ramifications on his relationship with his new employer. Ichikawa’s lone wolf assassin is back in ‘A Killer’s Key’, this time masquerading as a traditional dance instructor named Nitta who is called in to avert a potential financial scandal that threatens to engulf a powerful yakuza group with ties to powerful figures in the political establishment.

Co-scripted by the director Yasuzo Masumura and featuring masterful scope cinematography with an expressionistic eye for colour by one of Japan’s most esteemed cinematographers, Kazuo Miyagawa, these Japanese crime drama essentials are presented for the very first time to the English-language home video market.

Features:
• HD (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of both films
• Original uncompressed Japanese mono audio for both films
• Optional newly translated English subtitles
• New audio commentary for both films by Tony Rayns
• The Definite Murderer, new 30-minute introduction to the films by Mark Roberts
• Original theatrical trailers for both films
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring new artwork for both films by Tony Stella
• Illustrated collector’s booklet

‘A Certain Killer’ and ‘A Killer’s Key’ are available to pre-order now from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Phil Mills
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