Highly respected Japanese filmmaker, Kinji Fukasaku, who died in 2003 at the age of 73, having just directed a hugely successful sci-fi/horror satire, was responsible for several classics of Japanese, and indeed world, cinema. His films include the “The Yakuza Papers” underworld crime sagas — Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Jingi naki tatakai, 1973), Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (Jingi naki tatakai: Hiroshima shito hen, 1973), Proxy War (Jingi naki tatakai: Dairi senso, 1973), Police Tactics (Jingi naki tatakai: Chojo sakusen, 1974) and Final Episode (Jingi naki tatakai: Kanketsu-hen, 1974) — and assorted other Japanese noir and action films. Other successes include Message From Space (Uchu kara no messeji, 1978), Legend of the Eight Samurai (Satomi hakken-den, 1983), the Japanese sequences of Tora! Tora! Tora!: The Attack on Pearl Harbor (1970), the brilliant (though rarely seen in the West in its full glory) Virus (aka Day of Resurrection, Fukkatsu no hi, 1980), and the brutal modern classics Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru, 2000) and its sequel.
Yet he also directed the infamous The Green Slime (1968).
Long elusive on all but poor-quality pan-and-scanned VHS, The Green Slime is a film for which many fans retain great fondness, notwithstanding a lingering awareness of its goofy and gloriously schlocky nature.
Well, at last Warner Bros is releasing it from the archives, according to Japanese film expert August Ragone. He reports (via Tom Weaver) that the DVD will feature a brand new 16:9 — 2.35:1 Scope master print, newly remastered especially for this release in HD. According to his source, it “looks quite remarkable. This is the first master done in the proper OAR. The source was a beautiful IP.”
I can’t wait.
- Via Bob Eggleton
There’s a great cover version of the theme song from Green Slime from a singer called Josie Cotton.
It also makes a great companion flick to an Italian SF movie, Wild Wild Planet, which is deeply and disturbingly weird.
Hey, Terry, apparently Warner Bros. has also resurrected “Wild Wild Planet” from their archives and it’s due for the same DVD treatment as the “Slime”. Also “War of the Planets”. Weird interplanetary adventure is on the ascendant!
True. Next thing they’ll be releasing Disney’s Moon Pilot in a Criterion Edition.