DVD release - The 3 Faces of Shinji Aoyama (ArtsMagic US) available on March 31, 2009

The 3 Faces of Shinji Aoyama features three early films by Cannes Film Festival award winner Shinji Aoyama packaged together at a reduced price.

In An Obsession (Tsumetai Chi, 1997), Aoyama offers his take on Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1949 film, Stray Dog. When his gun is stolen and used to commit a string of murders, Detective Saga (Ryo Ishibashi) spends every waking moment tracking down the culprit as the life he once knew crumbles around him.

In EM Embalming (1999), an apparent suicide turns suspicious when embalmer Miyako Murakami (Reiko Takashima) finds a needle embedded in the man’s eyeball. Soon, Miyako gets a strange warning from a Buddhist cult leader and the head of the corpse is later removed and stolen—leading her on a hellish journey where she’s deluged with incidents of black market organ harvesting, multiple personality disorder, illegal drug experiments, and murder.

In Wild Life (1997), an ex-boxer gets caught up in the criminal underworld and ends up in the middle of a confusing rivalry between two yakuza bosses.

Region 1, NTSC, anamorphic widescreen, 3 discs DVD-9. Japanese Dolby 5.1 audio with English subtitles. Features include audio commentaries by Jasper Sharp, interviews, and cast/crew info.

Available at the following retailer(s) on March 31, 2009: