Product Details

• Actors: Ken Yoshizawa, Rie Yokoyama, Yuki Arasa, Masao Adachi, Michio Akiyama
• Directors: Kôji Wakamatsu
• Writers: Masao Adachi
• Format: Black & White, Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: December 26, 2000
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000051S7I
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #71,306 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The '60s are definitely over in director Koji Wakamatsu's outrageous look at the Japanese radical movement. A group of oversexed militants (named after the days of the week) try to steal weapons from a U.S Army base--Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are killed. Slowly, the surviving group members realize they've been betrayed by their own organization, and begin to wreak sexual and political anarchy on everything in sight. Between the 1960's and early 1970's, Japanese cinema literally exploded with some of the greatest genre filmmaking ever seen--a mindbending Cinemascope paradise of samurai swordfests, crazed yakuza thrillers and low-budget erotica. In conjunction with the American Cinematheque, Image Entertainment presents this rarely-seen Japanese cult film.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wakamatsu: A Whole New Dessert, March 3, 2008

By	Eileen Corder (West Coast) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ecstasy of the Angels (DVD)

In a rare and most informing interview included on this DVD (for which I give five stars) director Wakamatsu Koji says plainly and with conviction that his movies rewrite film grammar. Soft-spoken with an impish grin, his manner reveals a moxy, an intelligence, an innovator who was drawn to filmmaking in such an unlikely manner that his low-budget and stylish films are to studio pictures like an Outsider painting is to Western Art. There is a profusion of sex and violence, but in the end, they seem more like a rite of passage, a breaking down of barriers, an initiation into his perspective on the world. Ecstasy of the Angels continually surprised me with satire, humor, and a strong, yet understated pathos. And, cinematically, the fistful of unexpected explosions of color, jabbed like punctuation marks into an otherwise black & white film, hooked me good.

Although Wakamatsu has made over 100 films in the last 45 years, several of which he talks about in this DVD interview, they are rarely screened in the U.S. outside film festivals. Working as a construction worker before he began his film career in 1963, he nonetheless made a stir at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival with his Secrets Behind the Wall, which competed for the Golden Bear, no less. A major influence in Japan's pink (soft porn) film movement, his subjects often revolve around politics, murder and sex. In the West he is potentially best known for his role in producing In the Realm of the Senses.

His new film, United Red Army, recently won two prizes at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, the C.I.C.A.E./Arte Award and the Netpac (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award. At present there are less than a handful of his films available, but with these new accolades, perhaps more of Wakamatsu's art will make its way to us. I hope so because discovering the art of Wakamatsu Koji isn't like finding a new flavor of ice cream, it's like stumbling upon a whole new dessert.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Successful?, March 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Ecstasy of the Angels (DVD)

An interesting film that I don't believe was entirely successful. The premise, a revolutionary group recognized by rank and function by the names of days, months and seasons that falls apart and betrays itself, is a clever one, but the dialogue is often too repetitive and cryptic to draw you in further. I'd like to see more from this director, but I think this film fell short its mission. I saw the VHS version so I can't comment on the DVD extras, if there are any or not.

2 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad... Not bad., January 14, 2001

By	James E Byrd III "thesongbyrd" (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ecstasy of the Angels (DVD)

Part of the Japanese Outlaw Masters series that played at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles last year. I hear that the great Female Convinct Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 was by far the highlight, but if this is even half as good, I want to own it. Directed by Koji Wakamatsu.