2023 aims to be a great year for Katsuhito Ishii fans. The Japanese auteur’s work is soon to be subject of a few film events taking place this summer for NIFFF, as well as in the UK in July at the Prince Charles Cinema (TBA) and at Derby’s QUAD Cinema (also TBA). By then, fans will be able to snag their copy of a sextet of films dubbed The Katsuhito Ishii Collection, a mixed collection of six films at short and feature-length on limited edition 3 disc digipack Blu-ray.
Starting with Disc 1, we have 1998’s Shark Skin Man And Peach Hip Girl, with Tadanobu Asano and Sie Kohinata leading the way for the story of a woman and a man on the run from her sexually abusive uncle and relentless Yakuza killers and goons looking to retrieve what’s theirs. That film gets paired with Ishii’s earlier 1995 indie short, Promise Of August, featuring actor Dankan in the role of a suicidal man who falls in love with one of three wandering college girls on the countryside.
Disc 2 brings the jam-packed, hyper-fueled anime/live-action killer medley that is Party 7, starring Masatoshi Nagase as a low-level Yakuza on the run who becomes one of seven key players in a propulsive game that could either see him escape 200 million yen richer, or dead. For Disc 3, Ishii’s 2008 summer camp comedy, Sorasoi, takes the reins along with 2014’s coming of age rock-and-roll love story, Hello Junichi, and the calamity that ensues when two women pay Ryu Morioka a visit in Ishii’s latest shortfilm, Norioka Worshop.
I couldn’t find a trailer for at least one of these projects (the rest I found elsewhere on the web) but the press pack does oblige with some key art and stills for me to present which you can check out in the gallery below. Just be sure to tap the images then tap the “i” icon on the bottom right to pull down and read the descriptions.
As for pre-orders, Third Window is unleashing this bad boy on July 17, so head over to Terracotta Distribution and get yours today, as there are only 2000 copies available!
