Episode 16: Japanese V-Cinema with Tom Mes

It’s spring equinox and Eros + Massacre is emerging from hibernation! This first episode of 2025 is a discussion with cinema historian Tom Mes. He’s an international treasure and many of you were likely introduced to some incredible Japanese films due to his exhaustive writing and research and his site Midnight Eye. He just released a new book, Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video, and works with blu-ray companies like Arrow and Radiance as a producer on many of their Japanese cinema releases. Be sure to check out his latest lovechild with Arrow, V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal (for which I was honored to contribute a video essay), and Radiance releases like Elegant Beast and A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness (immense thanks to Tom for hiring me to do the commentary!), among many more. Needless to say, this episode is all about Japanese V-cinema, a really underrated direct-to-video subgenre that emerged in Japan in the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s and spanned everything from crime and horror films to romances and comedies. I wanted to list out some of the names and titles we talk about in the episode, to make them easier to find. Directors we mention: Yasuharu Hasebe, Toshiharu Ikeda, Shunichi Nagasaki, Sogo Ishii, Kazuhiro Kiuchi, Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Banmei Takahashi, Rokurō Mochizuki; also actors Yūsaku Matsuda, Shô Aikawa, and Riki Takeuchi. Some key films/series mentioned: Carlos (1991), Stranger (1991), Crime Hunter (1989), Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet (1990), Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series, The King of Minami series, The Outer Way (1998), and Yakuza Taxi (1994).