Streaming Sleepers: Shunichi Nagasaki’s BLACK BELT Is A Martial Arts Spiritual For The Ages
It’s times like this when I look back on the year, 2007, and wish I still had a computer then. I still had a nascent little blog and some years later, I would finally… FINALLY get around to seeing Shunichi Nagasaki’s period drama, Black Belt (a.k.a. Kuro-Obi [黒帯]), written by Joji Iida (Spiral, Dragon Head). I hadn’t seen any of Nagasaki’s work prior or after, and by then I was already steeped in Asian film fandom with only so much money to spend on DVDs and, like most Westerners, very little access to certain obscure titles. That this particular film ultimately suffered the blow of getting torrented to all hell was probably evident, though still unfortunate, and for all I know, it probably slowed down the film’s traction here in the states, save for a quiet DVD release via Tokyo Shock in 2008 and a little bit of buzz from […]