hideo sakaki

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ALIVE: Media Blasters Readies Ryuhei Kitamura’s 2002 Manga Adaptation For Spring Blu-Ray Release

We’ll be gladly helping share the mantle going forward as Media Blasters continues to project its predominantly Asian niche anime and live-action releases. The company, which ran successfully for fifteen years until tax complications and other business hamperings all but endangered its longevity, had been quietly awakening among its target consumer base with DVD-on-demand releases for the last two years, and to its credit, is shaping up for an even more formidable show of fan service in the past year. As of Thursday, according to Dawn Of The Discs, one title on deck for Media Blasters that’s reportedly begun prepping a Spring Blu-Ray release is of Ryuhei Kitamura’s 2004 sci-fi action horror, Alive. Starring Hideo Sakaki, Based on Tsutomu Takahashi’s 1999 manga, Alive reunites Kitamura with several cast members from Versus, namely Hideo Sakaki who takes the lead. In the film, Sakaki plays Tenshu, a death row prisoner whose humanity […]

Holy Shit! Is This A VERSUS Reunion???

Lee B. Golden III

Whatever or however which way you slice it, it appears that some of the screen stars of Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus were able to reconvene at some point last year. Just a little bit of this was documented on actor and action star Tak Sakaguchi’s own YouTube channel and while little was known then, we finally know just a little more now with a promo for what roughly translates as Violence Musou: Subliminal War (暴力無双－サブリミナル・ウォー－). (Thanks, Google? ?) Twitter user @HeadExposure revealed the find on Wednesday as what’s reported to be a 47-minute sequel to Kitamura’s long-heralded sword fantasy horror classic, reuniting Sakaguchi with Hideo Sakaki who also stars in the project; Sakaki also directed the mini-film whilst Sakaguchi served as action director, in addition to starring from a script by Mitsunobu Haru, with Versus actors Kenji Matsuda, Chieko Misaka and Hoshimi Asai, along with a one-handed Shoichiro Masumoto, and the […]

VERSUS: Ryuhei Kitamura’s Legendary Action Horror Gets A DVD/Blu-Ray Combo Pack From Arrow Video!

Lee B. Golden III

While you’re busy catching onto recent Ryuhei Kitamura releases such as Downrange and The Doorman, feel free to take a trip back about twenty years ago when the auteur began making a name for himself at the turning point of the new millennium with his hit indie action horror, Versus. The film introduces a hypnotic, stylish martial arts-tinged horror thriller featuring legends Tak Sakaguchi and Hideo Sakaki in an interdimensional story that crosses time and space, drawing an escaped convict and a mysterious, immortal killer closer to an inveitable battle, with a mystical young woman caught in the middle. It’s the film that drew crowds at festivals around the world and remains a cult favorite to this day, especially for anyone who’s ever purchased a U.S. Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock DVD of this film in one edition or another. Nearly twenty years later, the good folks at Arrow Video have hit […]