![]() ![]() Instead, Crime Hunter focuses its delirious 58-minute run-time on close-ups of huge guns as shoot-outs erupt every five minutes, leaving just enough space for a sex scene, a reference to The Godfather, and shots of a nun, a macaw, and a jar of severed fingers. The first Toei V-Cinema production – presented in boxy 4:3 aspect ratio so as to better fit old-school TV screens – wastes no time on character development or even much plot or dialogue. ![]() Joe (Masanori Sera) then wakes up in hospital with an insatiable appetite for revenge. As the captive escapes, Ahiru (V-Cinema icon Riki Takeuchi, Dead or Alive ) takes a shot to the head. Two trigger-happy cops, Joe and Ahiru, raid an apartment to arrest a Rambo lookalike, but their getaway is thwarted when their car is shot up by a gang of hoodlums in clown masks. Some of the biggest names in Japanese cinema today – from Venice Silver Lion winner Kiyoshi Kurosawa to Cannes 2023 Best Actor winner Koji Yakusho ( Cure ) – all cut their teeth working on direct-to-video (DTV) productions in the 90s. In the process, all kinds of talented young actors and filmmakers suddenly found themselves with a new platform to showcase their talents. Within a year of launching its V-Cinema label, Toei was making 22 per cent of its annual income from video releases. ![]() Male consumers lapped up promises of big guns and (often) even bigger boobs advertised on video box covers, as low-budget B-movies were churned out en masse. It would transform the industry in the decade thereafter. In 1989, with the release of Toei’s Crime Hunter, a wild and revolutionary new arena of production and distribution was confirmed: so-called ‘V-Cinema’. The solution was obvious: instead of pouring megabucks into big-screen productions, the big studios would focus on cheap, eye-grabbing straight-to-video films to pose on rental store shelves. As home video devices became increasingly affordable, nationwide video rentals from some 16,000 stores would total 840 million in 1989. Box office sales were plummeting towards an all-time low of 122.9 million in 1996, with major studio Nikkatsu declaring bankruptcy by 1993. As Japan’s economy boomed in the late 80s, its film industry faced a crisis. ![]()
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