The Movie Waffler Arrow Video Bring Italian Horror, Danish Comedy & Japanese Action To Blu-Ray This June | The Movie Waffler

Arrow Video Bring Italian Horror, Danish Comedy & Japanese Action To Blu-Ray This June

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Arrow Video have announced their June line-up.






One of our favourite blu-ray labels, Arrow Video have announced another tasty quartet of titles for release in June.

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From Denmark comes cult comedy Klown. Based off a hit Danish sitcom, it's a hilarious tale of men behaving badly that makes the antics of the Hangover boys look like a church outing. It's available June 5th.

Extras include a commentary by director Mikkel Nørgaard and writer-actors Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen, and an episode of the show co-written by Lars von Trier.

Comedians and TV personalities Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen (hosts of the Danish version of Shooting Stars) play extreme versions of themselves in the Curb Your Enthusiasm-alike comedy of embarrassment.

Based on the hit sitcom, Klown finds Frank on the verge of the fatherhood. So how better to prove his paternal credentials than ‘borrowing’ his awkward 13-year-old nephew to accompany him and Casper on their annual tour de pussy? What follows is far too crude and outrageous to describe here!

Imagine a Scandinavian relative of The Inbetweeners and The Hangover with a dash of Lars von Trier at his most playfully transgressive and you’re getting close to the shocking hilarity of Klown.


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Dario Argento's debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, comes to blu-ray June 19th in a mouth-watering 4K package packed with on-disc extras as well as a 60-page booklet, poster and lobby cards.

Extras include a new interview with Argento and a commentary by giallo expert Troy Howarth.

In 1970, young first-time director Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria) made his indelible mark on Italian cinema with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage – a film which redefined the ‘giallo’ genre of murder-mystery thrillers and catapulted him to international stardom.

Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante, We Own the Night), an American writer living in Rome, inadvertently witnesses a brutal attack on a woman (Eva Renzi, Funeral in Berlin) in a modern art gallery. Powerless to help, he grows increasingly obsessed with the incident. Convinced that something he saw that night holds the key to identifying the maniac terrorising Rome, he launches his own investigation parallel to that of the police, heedless of the danger to both himself and his girlfriend Giulia (Suzy Kendall, Spasmo)…

A staggeringly assured debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage establishes the key traits that would define Argento’s filmography, including lavish visuals and a flare for wildly inventive, brutal scenes of violence. With sumptuous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now) and a seductive score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West), this landmark film has never looked or sounded better in this new, 4K-restored limited edition from Arrow Video!


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There's more Italian horror June 12th in the form of Ovidio Assonitis' Madhouse, released here in a 2K restoration.

Extras include commentary with podcasters The Hysteria Continues and new interviews with cast and crew.

Helmed by legendary producer/director Ovidio Assonitis, the man behind such cult favourites as The Visitor and Piranha II: The Spawning, Madhouse is a crimson-soaked tale of sibling rivalry taken to a terrifying and bloody extreme.

Julia has spent her entire adult life trying to forget the torment she suffered at the hands of her twisted twin Mary… but Mary hasn’t forgotten. Escaping hospital, where she’s recently been admitted with a horrific, disfiguring illness, Julia’s sadistic sister vows to exact a particularly cruel revenge on her sibling this year – promising a birthday surprise that she’ll never forget.

An Italian production shot entirely in Savannah, Georgia, Madhouse (aka And When She Was Bad and There Was a Little Girl) fuses slasher elements with the over-the-top excess of ‘80s Italian terror – resulting in a cinematic bloodbath so gut-wrenching that the British authorities saw fit to outlaw it as a “video nasty”.


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Cult Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku gives us the outrageous Doberman Cop, released here for the first time outside Japan.

Extras include a new video appreciation by Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane and new interview with star Sonny Chiba.

Released just as the popularity of yakuza movies was waning in Japan, and as the country's film industry was undergoing some fundamental shifts, Doberman Cop is a unique entry in the career of director Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Cops vs Thugs), and reunited him with star Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba (The Street Fighter, Wolf Guy) in an American-style crime movie that mixes gunplay and pulp fiction with martial arts and lowbrow comedy to create one of their most entertaining films.

Based on a popular manga by "Buronson" (creator of Fist of the North Star), Doberman Cop follows the fish-out-of-water adventures of Joji Kano (Chiba), a tough-as-nails police officer from Okinawa who arrives in Tokyo's Kabuki-cho nightlife district to investigate the savage murder and mutilation of an island girl who had been working as a prostitute. Initially dismissed as a country bumpkin (complete with straw hat and live pig in tow!), Kano soon proves himself a more savvy detective than the local cops, and a tougher customer than anyone expected. As he probes deeper into the sleazy world of flesh-peddling, talent agency corruption and mob influence, Kano uncovers the shocking truth about the girl, her connection to a yakuza-turned-music manager (Hiroki Matsukata), and a savage serial killer who is burning women alive.

Made to appeal both to the youth market with its biker gangs and popular music, as well as to old-time yakuza movie fans, Doberman Cop is an surprising oddity in Fukasaku's career, his sole film adapted directly from a manga and never before released on video outside of Japan. Featuring Chiba at his charismatic best — channeling a Japanese Dirty Harry while doing all his own stunts — and Fukasaku at his most fun, deftly showcasing the combined talents of his "Piranha Army" stock company of actors and other regular players — Doberman Cop is a classic action comedy and a missing link in 1970's Japanese cinema deserving of rediscovery.