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David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:

Kill! is an entertaining and unusual take on the samurai/swordplay genre that plays for laughs many of the conventional tropes and set-ups common in the classic films from that tradition. I was fascinated observing how many of the fighting techniques, interpersonal conflicts, man vs. world showdowns and dramatic battle scenes that impact viewers with awe-inspiring tension can become a showcase of hilarity with just a slight exaggeration of tone, body language or facial expression (or simply cranking the fans that stir up dust clouds an extra notch or two.) Barking dialog that would come across as solemn and severe in more straightforward, traditional chanbara epics conveys much of the same surface meaning in advancing the story along in Kill! but also ends up generating a nice side helping of mirth in the process. Though at least one review considers...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 14, 2012

Price: DVD $19.99, Blu-ray $29.99

Studio: Criterion

Swords slash in the Japanese action-drama Three Outlaw Samurai.

Three Outlaw Samurai, the first film by legendary Japanese filmmaker Hideo Gosha (Sword of the Beast) is among the most canonized chambara (sword-fighting) films.

An origin-story offshoot of a Japanese television series phenomenon of the same name, the 1964 action-drama movie tells of a wandering, seen-it-all ronin (Tetsuro Tamba) who becomes entangled in the dangerous business of two other samurai (Isamu Nagato and Mikijiro Hira) who’ve been hired to execute a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of a corrupt magistrate.

A tight story filled out with well-mounted action sequences, this classic revenge tale is presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

The Criterion Blu-ray and DVD doesn’t have a heap of special features like most of the supplier’s releases, but the movie did get a high-definition digital...

This one is coming up late, due to Criterion jam packing a ton of releases on Friday, right while I was finishing up the original post. I think they wanted to mess with me, which is very funny. But being the premier (and only) site that gives you the best coverage of Hulu Plus movies, I don’t mind taking the time at all. I’m hoping it has nothing to do with the recent shake-up going on that Josh just reported on the other day (here), and with Hulu wanting to be bought because of financial problems stemming from multiple sources, this makes one wonder what’s going to happen to the Criterion Collection and their deal with Hulu. I’m crossing my fingers that whoever buys the service, be it Amazon, Google or Yahoo (who is the frontrunner), it doesn’t ruin the deal in place for Criterion and its films.

There are Tons of new releases this past week, and as my co-host and friend Travis George said, it was going to be a hell of a time to write these up for all of you people out there who want to know about Criterion’s blossoming Hulu Plus page. And as usual, I’m elated to tell you all about these films, especially if you want to join up to the service, which helps us keep this weekly article series going. I mean, come on, there’s an Ingmar Bergman film that’s not in the collection yet! More on that at the end of the article. So let’s get right to it then.

The epic film The Human Condition (1959) has been put up, separated into three videos. Parts 1 & 2, Parts 3 & 4 and Parts 5 & 6 are there for your ease of watching, so if you have 574 minutes to kill watching the...