Empire of Oshima (c)Criterion Collection

BUY the 5-DVD set READ Michael Koresky’s essays on the films READ Dave Kehr’s New York Times review READ Dennis Lim’s Los Angeles Times review	EMPIRE OF OSHIMA Eclipse Series 21: Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties Many Criterion viewers discovered Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima through his explicit and searing 1970s hits In the Realm of the Senses and Empire of Passion, which we released in special editions last year. We’re pleased to report that those were only the tip of the iceberg. In the new Eclipse series Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties, we present five daring, hypnotic movies, all about social deviants and outcasts and all made just after Oshima struck out on his own as an independent director (his final studio film having proved too controversial to handle). These are challenging, brilliantly shot works, from the excoriating portrait of hedonistic excess Pleasures of the Flesh to the visceral, political serial-killer study Violence at Noon and the truly radical Three Resurrected Drunkards, a passionate antiwar statement and absurdist takedown of Japanese prejudice against Koreans. It’s a collection of rarely seen films that Film Comment has already called “one of the year’s most significant DVD releases,” adding, “By presenting the work of Oshima and, earlier this year, Chantal Akerman to new audiences, Criterion’s Eclipse label has already equaled the achievements of its more renowned parent.” And in the Los Angeles Times, Dennis Lim calls Oshima’s films “universal, and as urgent and important as ever.”
	No more teachers, no more books: Sing a Song of Sex’s students learn the hard way. Check out the film’s original trailer.
	FIVE-DVD BOX SET INCLUDES:
	PLEASURES OF THE FLESH A corrupt businessman blackmails the lovelorn reprobate Atsushi into watching over his suitcase full of embezzled cash while he serves a jail sentence. Rather than wait for the man to retrieve his money, however, Atsushi decides to spend it all in one libidinous rush.
	VIOLENCE AT NOON Containing more than two thousand cuts and a wealth of inventive widescreen compositions, this coolly fragmented character study is a mesmerizing investigation of criminality and social decay.
	SING A SONG OF SEX Four sexually hungry high school students prepare for their university entrance exams in Oshima’s hypnotic, free-form depiction of generational political apathy, featuring stunning color cinematography.
	JAPANESE SUMMER: DOUBLE SUICIDE A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational, oddball anarchists trapped in an underground hideaway in Oshima’s devilish film.
	THREE RESURRECTED DRUNKARDS A trio of bumbling young men frolic at the beach. While they swim, their clothes are stolen and replaced with new outfits. Donning these, they are mistaken for undocumented Koreans and end up on the run from comically outraged authorities.
	Available now! SRP: $69.95 Criterion Store price: $55.96
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM ECLIPSE:
Series 1: Early Bergman Series 2: The Documentaries of Louis Malle Series 3: Late Ozu Series 4: Raymond Bernard Series 5: The First Films of Samuel Fuller Series 6: Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa Series 8: Lubitsch Musicals Series 9: The Delirious Fictions of William Klein Series 10: Silent Ozu—Three Family Comedies		Series 11: Larisa Shepitko Series 12: Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women Series 14: Rossellini’s History Films—Renaissance and Enlightenment Series 15: Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu Series 16: Alexander Korda’s Private Lives Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir Series 18: Dušan Makavejev—Free Radical Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies Series 20: George Bernard Shaw on Film