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I’m trying to remember the title of a movie. There’s a bomber, who puts a device on public transport. If it registers a speed over… ah I forget what the exact marker was, but anyway, that arms the bomb, then if it goes below that speed…Boom! So the cops have to figure out who this guy is, and how to disarm the bomb. I think it was called “The bus that couldn’t slow down”, but it might have been a bit snappier than that.

That aside, 1975’s The Bullet Train definitely bears some striking similarities to, you know, that bus movie. Ken Takahara plays Okita, he’s 40, has lost his company in a bankruptcy and is recently divorced. Recruiting two friends (Kei Yamamoto and Akira Oda) to help set it up, he develops a plan to hold a bullet train with approximately 1500 passengers to...

On August 19, 2021, legendary Japanese actor Sonny Chiba succumbed to complications from Covid-19. He was 82. If you don’t know Chiba, he was a pioneering martial arts movie stars and a genuine master of the martial arts. Long before Bruce Lee, there was Sonny Chiba.

Chiba was his stage name. He was born as Sadaho Maeda and adopted “Chiba” after Japan’s Chiba prefecture where he grew up. His Japanese stage name was Shinichi Chiba, but he was known internationally as Sonny.

Chiba was a natural athlete and a contender for Japan’s Olympic gymnastics team until he was sidelined by an injury. He pivoted to study Karate under the venerated master Mas Oyama, a hardened full-contact fighter who was famous for killing bulls with his bare hands. Chiba went on to earn black belts in several schools of Karate, as well as Judo, Kendo, and Ninjitsu.

In the 60s, Chiba...

A year after the culmination of the original Sister Street Fighter trilogy that pushed their star Etsuko Shihomi into fame, she would appear in “13 Steps of Maki: The Young Aristocrats”, a production that many, even some hardcore “Sister Street Fighter” fans, would agree is a better Shihomi film.

Based on a comic-book, “13 Steps of Maki” centres around the titular Maki of the 13 Steps and her Stray Cats girl gang, a group of martial artists who come across as delinquents at times but use their skills to help others. When they run into trouble with a woman on the road, they leave her buried in the sand up to her neck on a beach but the woman, as it turns out, is the daughter of a big corporation head, who is in bed with the Yakuza. With the help of her Daddy’s Yakuza friends, she manages to have the...

Arrow Video is excited to announce the bow of their new subscription-based Arrow platform, available in the US and Canada beginning October 1. Building on the success of the Arrow Video Channel and expanding its availability across multiple devices and countries, Arrow boasts a selection of cult classics, hidden gems and iconic horror films, all curated by the Arrow Video team.

Arrow Video Channel begins streaming this October with headliners The Deeper You Dig, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Crumbs, The Hatred, Cold Light of Day, Videoman and The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast. Also immediately available are perennial Halloween hits Hellraiser 1 & 2, Elvira, Ringu, tthe complete Gamera series, as well as full collections from the Arrow archives packed with exclusive extras, rarely seen interviews and documentaries.

The Deeper You Dig, the latest feature written, directed by and starring filmmaking family The Adams Family, leads the lineup of Arrow's launch, joined by The Adams Family's The Hatred,...

Arrow Video is excited to announce the June rollout of titles on their subscription-based Arrow Video Channel, including the exclusive debut of Miguel Llans&#243's Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway. A hit on the international festival circuit, the film boasts an Irish-accented Joseph Stalin, a kung-fu-fighting Batman, a mix of Afro-futurism, Cold War paranoia, Lynchian surrealism, the dystopian world of Philip K. Dick and 60s exploitation cinema.

Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway is available June 1st exclusively on the Arrow Video Channel in the Us and the UK. Additional new titles available June 1st include The Woman (UK/Us), Bloodtide (UK/Us), Dream Demon (UK/Us), White Fire (UK/Us) and The Stuff (Us). The Arrow Video Channel is available on Apple TV in the UK and Us, as well as on Amazon in the UK.

In Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway,...

Seeing that the time-off in between films was working nicely for the franchise, this fourth and final entry in the ‘Sister Street Fighter’ series now arrives with a full year break in between the releases, in a sequel in name-only since it was graced with a new creative team in director Shigehiro Ozawa and writers Isao Matsumoto and Motohiro Torii.

Trying to please her mother, young Kiku Nakagawa continually leaves their successful kimono shop business in order to take martial arts at a local dojo. Her friend at the dojo, Michi becomes concerned about her stepbrother Jim (Ken Wallace) going missing one day, eventually learning that he’s been in the employ of movie studio owner Fujiyama, who’s been using the studio as a base for a series of smuggling operations and the film shoots as a front for the activities. Taking the situation up with police detective Takagi,...

After the success of the original ‘Street Fighter,’ a new series was commissioned involving female martial arts actress Etsuko Shihomi to provide a counterbalance to Sonny Chiba’s wild main films. Containing the same kinetic action, wild exploitation elements and crazed villains as well as letting the prowess of Shihomi shine through, this stellar example of Japanese kung-fu and martial arts is now released in a complete collection set with the rest of the franchise on March 5th from Arrow Video.

After her brother’s disappearance, inspector Li Koryu is assigned to look into the same case that caused him to disappear, and begins to look into the drug-smuggling ring of Yokohama. After her initial exploits in trying to get into the group fail, she attracts the attention of Hibiki who’s also been sent to look into the disappearance, and puts her in contact with a...

Happy March, everyone! Now that we’re into a brand new month, it means we have tons of great horror and sci-fi films hitting Blu-ray and DVD in the coming weeks that fans should keep an eye out for. This Tuesday, we have a few indie thrillers hitting both formats that are definitely worth your time: The Clovehitch Killer, Burning and The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, and if you’re into horror comedies, be sure to check out Dead Ant as well.

Other notable home media releases for March 5th include Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete Fourth Season, Kalifornia Collector’s Edition, The Church, The House and 30 Miles From Nowhere.

Burning

Based on a story by international best-selling author Haruki Murakami, Burning is the searing examination of an alienated young man, Jongsu, a frustrated introvert whose already difficult life is complicated by the appearance of two people into his orbit: first,...

The Sister Street Fighter Special Edition Blu-ray Collector’s Set will be available From Arrow Video March 5th

After the massive success of The Street Fighter, the Toei Company decided to build a new karate series around a female lead, and cast a young actress who had appeared in a cameo role alongside her mentor Sonny Chiba. Still a teenager at the time, Etsuko Shihomi exploded onscreen in her first leading role and created a new character type: a tough fighter who was fierce, fearless, good-hearted, and decidedly non-sexualised, a departure from Toei s typical formula.

In 1974 s Sister Street Fighter, Shihomi is the half-Chinese, half-Japanese Li Koryu, who travels to Yokohama to investigate the disappearance of her brother, an undercover cop. Li discovers a smuggling ring run by a drug lord with his own personal army of deadly fighters, and must penetrate his evil lair with the help of...