From Artsmagic DVD come two more Takashi Miike films from the 1990s, Young Thugs: Innocent Blood and Young Thugs: Nostalgia.
A Miike film that is to a degree autobiographical, Young Thugs - Innocent Blood follows three school friends through their first year after leaving. Set in Kishiwada, a fishing district in the industrial town of Osaka, Innocent Blood lives up to its title. A lot of blood gets splattered around without anyone getting too badly hurt or taking too much offence. This is a story of rough kids trying to find their way in the world, a world of violence, sentiment and comedy, in a film that moves at a cracking pace from the opening shot.
Nostalgia is Takashi Miike's favorite film of his considerable body of work. Including inserted biographical elements, Nostalgia centers around the home and school life of a young boy whose family mix the violent and dysfunctional with the comic and lovable. Though containing elements of the sudden and shocking brutality that many associate with this director, Nostalgia is more concerned with a child's moment of leaving the internalized world of fantasy, and passing on eagerly to the next stage of life. A wonderful, touching, startling vision that is uniquely Miike's.
Both DVDs feature interviews with the director, trailers and more, and will be released on October the 26th. Miike's Blue Remains and Bird People of China are released in November.
