During the glory days of VHS, the foreign film section of your local mom and pop store might have been a single rack. The boxes on display were mainly the classics that were taught at the local college’s Introduction to World Cinema course and the import films that had recently played the local art house for a few weeks. Most of the people that owned stores like Video Plaza weren’t hardcore cinephiles. They just wanted to stock stuff that would rent to people who were looking for the hits. There were places such as Dave’s Videodrome in Carrboro that focused on Asian titles that attracted a cult audience willing to drive 50 miles. I’m not even sure what films Dave had on the shelves since there were a lot. You couldn’t come close to renting them all in a summer. He would import NTSC tapes from overseas. The only downer was when you rented the ones that were available, they were pan and scan dupes off scope and most of the screen was taken up by white subtitles that you could barely read in bright scenes. This was not a pretty sight on a 20-inch standard definition television set. But we knew there was something good there. Now we’re in the Blu-ray era with 70-inch HDTVs with better subtitles. This is the time to enjoy the gems from across the oceans. I don’t know if Dave’s Videodrome “imported” Toru Murakawa’s Game Trilogy, but I screwed up if I didn’t rent them. The three movies from Japan arrive after nearly 50 years to deliver an iconic performance by Yusaku Matsuda (Black Rain) as the top mobster hitman on the island.
The Most Dangerous Game (1978 – 89 minutes) introduces us to Shouhei Narumi (Matsuda). He seems to be an absolute screw up as he loses a huge amount of money while playing a backroom Mahjong game. He gets roughed up and ends up back at his dumpy apartment. Little do we know that Narumi is the most reliable of Yakuza hitmen in Japan. He’s offered a small fortune by a defense company to rescue a kidnapped executive. Turns out that the company that lost the bid is behind the treachery. Narumi looks like a mess when he accepts the job, he is transformed into a man on a mission when he attempts to rescue the executive and take out industrial espionage. Matsuda is able to make us believe that Narumi can be both a massive mess and an efficient killer. His sunglasses and perm remind me of Max Jullian in The Mack. He is a rival for Sonny Chiba in being the biggest Badass in Tokyo. There’s no question that there needed to be more Narumi movies and Toei produced two more to the series.
The Killing Game (1978 – 92 minutes) has Narumi resurface after laying low for five years. Being out of the game so long hasn’t dented his career. He’s still in demand. He gets offered contracts by two different mob bosses that want to knock each other off. Is he going to pick a favorite or fulfill both contracts? Making things even more complicated is he crosses paths from two women he spared in the first movie. Is he really going to be able to pull off his mission and collect all that’s coming? Or is his personal life and business attitude going to implode?
The Execution Game (1979 – 100 minutes) removes the comic elements and pump ups the intensity on Narumi’s final hit. He finds himself on the floor of a warehouse. Before he can get too many answers, a goon beats him up and hangs him upside down. He has to fight his way out of the space only to discover that this is a serious test. His abductors want to hire him to take out another hitman. He’s a bit reluctant to be part of the retirement plan of a fellow executioner, but the goons might retire him too. Before he can do anything, Narumi must recover from the intense job interview. This leads to a great rehab montage. Narumi gets involved with a jazz singer Noako (Violent Fire‘s Lily) who is his connection the targeted hitman. There is a serious shift in the film since there’s not much dialogue. Yusaku Matsuda is up for more physicality and gesture in this final outing.
Game Trilogy deserved to have arrived in America decades ago. Although I don’t think audiences could have truly appreciated the story, performances, action and music if they’d watched it on a crummy VHS tape. Who knows how cartoony the English dub would sound. Toru Murakawa directed three films that need a large screen to full appreciate the scale of the imagery. The Blu-ray boxset lets you take in the majesty of Narumi. I feel bad that the movies weren’t released before Yusaku Matsuda’s first big break in America as the villain going against Michael Douglas in Black Rain. He died of cancer shortly after the film was release in 1989. We had no idea who he was at the time. I had no idea until recently that his image used to design Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop. Game Trilogy is an amazing set of films that lets us know that Matsuda was one of the greats.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic for all three films. The transfers are stellar since Tôru Murakawa has a lot of dark and shadowy exteriors that don’t get muddy. The audio is Japanese LPCM 1.0. The mixing levels let you enjoy the jazzy score and the scores of bullets shooting across the screen. The movies are subtitled in English.
Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Hayley Scanlon and Dimitri Ianni
DISC 1: THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME
Audio commentary by Chris Poggiali and Marc Walkow gets into the history of the film, cast and crew. There’s plenty of background on Yusaku Matsuda. He wore sunglasses when doing interviews to promote the films. They point out what happened to the various neighborhoods of Tokyo where the film was shot.
The Action Man (20:05) sits down with director Toru Murakawa. He talks about how during World War II, he had a film projector in his house and a few foreign films. That’s where his love of cinema came from. He moved up from an assistant director to director on a rather unusual genre that made him question what he was doing. He felt his career was over until he saw Yusaku Matsuda on TV. He wanted to work on a project with the actor and he was creatively awoken. A producer pal had moved over to Toei. Thus The Most Dangerous Game was birthed. He gets into the two sequels.
Original Japanese theatrical trailer (2:23) promises a lot of badassery.
Image Gallery has 15 promotional stills.
DISC 2: THE KILLING GAME & THE EXECUTION GAME
Audio Commentary on The Killing Game by Earl Jackson and Jasper Sharp gets into the sequel action.
Audio Commentary on The Execution Game by Tom Mes has him point out that Yusaku Matsuda might be the only action star to pull off a perm.
Remembering Yusaku Matsuda (17:41) allows Yutaka Oki, film critic to take us to a cool bar that was his favorite place to hang out with his personal friend of Yusaku Matsuda. The actor performed in the live theater while still doing TV and before his big time on the big screen. He talks of the fun they had trying out new drinks at the bar. You will want to go to Oki’s bar after watching this bonus feature.
Game Changer (22:15) lets The Execution Game screenwriter Shoichi Maruyama explain how they wrapped up the series. He explains how he wanted to be the Japanese Shakespeare. He swiped money from his folks and went to Tokyo to see plays. He realized he was not going to be that, but he sensed he could do well writing film scripts. He explains how he got hooked up at Toei after graduating from college. His first gig involved the series in the first sequel although his work wasn’t used. This lead to him getting to write on Yusaku Matsuda’s TV series Detective Story. He was brought back to write the finale film on the Game series. His original script has the hitman killed and his twin brother has to finish the job. Matsuda wanted less comedy that was part of the first two films. He wanted a movie like certain French films including one that starred Serge Gainsbourg. He shows off the script in Japanese which is formatted quite a bit differently than a Hollywood script.
Original Japanese theatrical trailers for The Killing Game (2:51) and The Execution Game (1:28). They sold these films with an intensity.
Image galleries for both films 45 press photos.
Arrow Video presents The Game Trilogy. Directed by Tôru Murakawa. Screenplays by Hideichi Nagahara, Koji Hama, Susumu Saji and Shoichi Maruyama. Starring Yusaku Matsuda, Keiko Tasaka, Ichirô Araki, Asao Uchida, Kei Satô, Yutaka Nakajima, Kenji Imai, Aiko Morishita, Yoshirô Aoki and Lily. Boxset Contents: 3 movies on 2 Blu-ray discs. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: June 20, 2023.
