As part of their release slates for the months June and July 2020 Arrow Academy will release the classic Nagisa Oshima “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence” starring David Bowie and Hideo Sekigawa’s powerful documentary “Hiroshima”
Synopsis for “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence”
David Bowie stars in Nagisa Oshima’s 1983 Palme d’Or-nominated portrait of resilience, pride, friendship and obsession among four very different men confined in the stifling jungle heat of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Java during World War II.
In 1942, British officer Major Jack Celliers (Bowie) is captured by Japanese soldiers, and after a brutal trial sent, physically debilitated but indomitable in mind, to a POW camp overseen by the zealous Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto). Celliers’ stubbornness sees him locked in a battle of wills with the camp’s new commandant, a man obsessed with discipline and the glory of Imperial Japan who becomes unnaturally preoccupied with the young Major, while Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti), the only inmate with a degree of sympathy for Japanese culture and an understanding of the language, attempts to bridge the divide through his friendship with Yonoi’s second-in-command, Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano), a man possessing a surprising degree of compassion beneath his cruel façade.
Produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky), it was the first English-language film by Oshima (Death by Hanging, In the Realm of the Senses, Gohatto), a leading light of Japanese New Wave cinema, and provided breakthrough big-screen roles for comedian Takeshi Kitano and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also composed the film’s hauntingly memorable BAFTA-winning score. This powerful wartime drama was adapted from Laurens van der Post’s autobiographical novel ‘The Seed and the Sower’ (1963) by screenwriter Paul Mayersberg (The Man Who Fell to Earth).
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
Original uncompressed stereo audio
The Man Who Left His Soul on Film (1983), Paul Joyce’s 82-minute documentary profile of Nagisa Oshima
The Oshima Gang (1983), a 30-minute documentary following the film’s cast and makers at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
Video interviews with producer Jeremy Thomas and actor-composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
Exclusive newly filmed interview with critic Tony Rayns
Original theatrical trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Hadley
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jasper Sharp
Synopsis for “Hiroshima”
“Hiroshima” (1953) is a powerful evocation of the devastation wrought by the world’s first deployment of the atomic bomb and its aftermath, based on the written eye-witness accounts of its child survivors compiled by Dr. Arata Osada for the 1951 book “Children Of The A Bomb: Testament Of The Boys And Girls Of Hiroshima”.
Adapted for the screen by independent director Hideo Sekigawa (Listen to the Voices of the Sea, Tokyo Untouchable) and screenwriter Yasutaro Yagi (Theatre of Life, Rice), Hiroshima combines a harrowing documentary realism with moving human drama, in a tale of the suffering, endurance and survival of a group of teachers, their students and their families. It boasts a rousing score composed by Akira Ifukube (Godzilla) and an all-star cast including Yumeji Tsukioka (Late Spring, The Eternal Breasts), Isuzu Yamada (Throne of Blood, Yojimbo) and Eiji Okada (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Woman in the Dunes), appearing alongside an estimated 90,000 residents from the city as extras, including many survivors from that fateful day on 6th August 1945.
“Hiroshima” was produced and distributed outside of the studio system by the Japan Teachers’ Union following the mixed critical reception to Children of Hiroshima (1952), directed by Kaneto Shindo the previous year, the first dramatic feature to deal directly with the atomic bombing. Although sequences from the film were used in Alain Resnais’ classic of French New Wave cinema, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), it has been effectively out of circulation in Japan and the rest of the world since its original release in 1953 due to the force and political sensitivity of its message. This new High Definition presentation is the complete version, restoring the footage from the international edit that was released in the United States in 1955.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
Original uncompressed audio
Archive interview with actress Yumeji Tsukioka
Hiroshima Nagasaki Download (2011), 73-minute documentary featuring interviews with survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings now residing in the United States, with an introduction by the director Shinpei Takeda
New video essay by Jasper Sharp
Newly commissioned artwork by Scott Saslow
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mick Broderick
