Hokuriku
Proxy War
(1977/Toei/MVD/Radiance Blu-ray)/Last
Stand At Sabre River
(1997/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/The
Order
(2024/Vertical Blu-ray)/Truth
Be Told: The Complete Series
(2019 - 2022/Chernin/CJ Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
B- Sound: B-/B-/B-/B Extras: C+/C-/D/D Main Programs:
C+/C+/B-/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Last
Stand At Sabre River
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Crime
and conflict in groups with individuals in the balance is the common
tie between the following releases...
Kinji
Fukasaku's Hokuriku
Proxy War
(1977) is a strangely comical, if darkly so, tale of a yakuza group
in Osaka looking to expand and that leads to Yasuhara (Nishimura Ko)
and Kawata (Matsukata Hiroki), going after each other with their
respective crews. When this gets out of control, a third party boss
Kanai (Sonny Chiba in an early role) has to step in, but quickly sees
it as an opportunity to use them against each other to do to both of
them what they are trying to do to each other.
Having
seen more than a few yakuza films of late, you get some overlap, but
this is bloodier and more graphic than average and is comparable to
the Italian crime films of the same decade. Most of this works, but
not all the time and some maybe disturbed by its mix of comedy,
sadism and violence, yet it is based on a true story (as one of the
supplements explain) and is probably accurate in its graphicness
portraying what really happened. You have to see it to believe it,
so all serious film fans need to give this one a look no matter what.
Glad I did.
Extras
include
a....
New
interview with actress Yoko Takahashi (2024, 15 minutes)
New
interview with screenwriter Koji Takada (2024, 19 minutes)
Yakuza
film historian Akihiko Ito on the real-life Hokuriku Proxy War
murder case (2024, 15 minutes)
Original
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible
sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time
Tomorrow
Limited
Edition
booklet featuring newly translated archival writings on the film
and
Limited
Edition
of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with
removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and
markings.
Dick
Lowery's Last
Stand At Sabre River
(1997) is a decent adaption of the Elmore Leonard book about a family
man (Tom Selleck in a good fit here as Cable) who comes home from the
Civil War having served for the Confederacy, only to have two
pro-Union brothers (David & Keith Carradine in fine form)
claiming his family home as theirs. With a wife (Suzi Amis) and two
children (a young Haley Joel Osment and Rachel Duncan) who just want
to get back to normal, Cable has to figure out what to do.
I
bet this kind of thing happened more often than discussed or
reported, with anyone Confederate being seen as more disposable and
easier to take form than anyone associated with the winning Union, or
by those who go 'Union' to justify being thieves, murderers and the
like. It i9s more melodrama than action, but I give it points for
ambition, better casting than we get in most so-called Westerns today
and at least the West is actually dirty and lived-in here versus the
hundreds of horrid, awful, would-be Westerns where the casts look
more like they are ready for a costume party than a real film. This
was part of a decent cycle of such films and I hope we see more of
these arrive on Blu-ray and home video because they have a new
audience looking for them and are long overdue for rediscovery.
David Dukes also stars.
A
preview of the film is the only extra.
Justin
Kurzel's The
Order
(2024) is the kind of risk-taking drama the major studios used to
make, but have difficulty taking on, so I was surprised it got made
and how good it really is. Based on actual events in the 1980s, it
starts with the late radio host and provocateur Alan Berg, who many
know was assassinated by two men who turned out to be ultra
Right-Wing extremists. Taking place in Denver, Colorado, that is
just the jumping-off point for this larger story about the splinter
group they come from.
Two
FBI agents (Jude Law and Tye Sherdian) land up investigating the
incident as Terry (Law) is already dealing with extremists in the
area, et al, so this just makes him more suspicious of Bob Matthews
(Nicholas Hoult in yet another remarkable performance) who may be
behind the murders as part of a new, deadly splinter group of white
supremacists who are also serial bank robbers.
The
events have inspired some films before, like Oliver Stone's so-so
Talk
Radio
(1987,) Costa-Gavras' very disappointing Betrayed
(1988) and 1999 telefilm Brotherhood
Of Murder
that was mixed, but needs a Blu-ray release itself. This is the
strongest of the feature films and despite a few moments that I did
not think worked, is still one of last year's most underrated films,
maybe of the last few years. The actors are great, the pacing works
and its as timely as ever. Cheers to Vertical Entertainment for
taking it on.
There
are sadly no extras, but it deserves some.
Reporters
and journalists covering crime has been a staple of fiction for eons,
from many a Film Noir to Lois Lane to Nancy Drew to Britt Reed (aka
The Green Hornet) to Carl Kolchak and so many others. Truth
Be Told: The Complete Series
(2019 - 2022) adds podcasting and Poppy Parnell (Octavia Spencer) to
that list in an underrated TV series that Apple backed and is known,
but should be more well known and discussed. The first season
establishes the world Poppy lives in, though it can be a little off
at times, then the second season get more into detail and is richer,
but the third season is most remarkable and I guess all involved
decided to end the series here (hopefully for only a while) because
there was no immediately toping it.
Reminiscent
of the likes of The
Wire,
Oz,
True
Detective,
Treme
and other recent, gritty TV shows in an impressive wave of them, it
is based on the book Are
You Sleeping
by Kathleen Barber and is so good, you will want to read the book.
Partly
based on the promo press release...
Season
1:
New evidence compels podcaster Poppy to reopen the murder case that
made her famous. She faces Warren Cave, the man she may have wrongly
helped imprison. Her investigation tackles urgent issues of privacy,
media, and race. Aaron Paul co-stars.
Season
2:
Poppy gets together with an old friend (Kate Hudson) when something
bad happens, but they have a history and it is lined to something
awful that happened before.
Season
3:
Poppy, frustrated by the lack of media attention for missing Black
girls, teams with an unorthodox principal (Gabrielle Union, in an
outstanding performance) to highlight the victims while pursuing
leads on a suspected sex trafficking ring.
The
rest of the supporting cast, including Mekhi Phifer, David Lyons,
Lizzy Caplan, Elizabeth Perkins, Annabella Sciorra, Xander Berkeley,
Peter Gallagher, Jason O'Mara, Donna Pescow, Tim Chiou and many other
faces we have seen before and I hope we see again real soon, Truth
Be Told
is one of the most underrated TV productions of the last ten years or
so and I very much recommend it. Give it a chance and you'll see
why.
There
are sadly no extras here either, despite how good the show got.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p picture quality is good
throughout all the releases, but the newer HD shoots tends to have
some color and detail issues despite their stylizings, while the
older two films just show their age a bit more than expected.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1, digital High Definition image transfer on Hokuriku
Proxy War
can show the age of the materials used, including flaws with the
older anamorphic lenses (Kowa, usually) but color is decent and
sometimes impressive, while the
Japanese PCM 2.0 Mono sound is not bad and as good as this film will
ever sound from its original theatric monophonic presentation.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Last
Stand At Sabre River
can also show the age of the materials used, though I suspect it is a
slightly older HD master, but at least we see the whole frame
photographed. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix is good for its age,
but only so state of the art for its time, so expect sonic limits
even with a decent David Shire music score. The combination will
make most fans happy.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on The
Order
has a style that works and to its credit, not some phony 1980s
cliched look that would make it look like some kind of mall movie,
but instead one that shows the dark side (even when it is not
actually or literally dark) if that era. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix can be a little uneven
affecting the consistency of the sonics and soundfield, but it mostly
is just fine.
The
1080p 2.1 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on each episode
of Truth
look good often with a style that works, but again, we get some image
limits. Also, each season has a slightly different look, but not
radically so, which is a plus. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on the episodes start out
good, then get really good in the follow-up seasons, making the best
sonics of any release on the list.
To
order the
Last
Stand At Sabre River
Warner Archive Blu-ray,
go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo
