The Threat is a gritty, at points disorienting and brutal Japanese neo-noir from the late 1960’s. It blends home invasion and kidnap elements- with a backdrop of a rapidly modernising and expanding Japan. Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and Stateside- is a new Blu-ray release of the picture, taking in a new crisp & clear HD scan of the film, a commentary track and a video appreciation.

The Threat (aka Odoshi ) was made in the year 1966, and filmed in Black & White stock. It splits its action between manic & busy Tokyo, and its misty suburbs.  The film was directed by Mito, Japan-born Kinji Fukasaku. He has sixty-two features to his name spanning between the early 60’s and early 2000’s. These take in fun ‘n’ quirky private investigator film Man In A Funky Hat(1961), Kabuki influence melodrama Black Rose (1969), a fair few 70’s yakuza films such as Sympathy For The Underdog, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and Graveyard of Honor. Apocalyptic adventure horror Virus (1980), and horror/survival classic Battle Royale (2000).

The film centres on middle-aged sales manager Misawa (Rentarô Mikuni) and his young family- taking in his wife Hiroko(Masumi Harukawa), & his around five-year-old son Masao (Pepe Hozumi). The family live on the outskirts of Toyko in a spread-out & often mist-bound plot.  As we get into the film we see the family settling in for the night- with Misawa taking a bath with his son, and Hiroko cooking supper. There is a rattle at the house's front door, and then it bursts open to find- into the house comes the short flat cap wearing Sabu(Hideo Murota) and his taller more unpredictable brother Kawanishi(Kô Nishimura)- both have recently escaped prison, and with them in a baby-in-arms, which the pair has kidnapped from an ageing cancer Doctor.

The pair of criminals pull the family into their kidnapping-  first getting  Misawa  to ring up the babies family, but slowly but surely pulling all the family deeper into kidnapping

The action of the film moves between the small confines of the house, out in the family car as  Misawa is taken out for nighttime drives with  Sabu, and the busy & manic city centre of Toyko. All soundtracked by a moody to angularly edgy jazz score.

Acting wise Mikuni is excellent/ believable as the salaryman getting further and further out of his depths. Equally, Harukawa as his wife portrays real tension and all-out fear.  Murota and Nishimura are fine as our two escaped criminals- though initially, they did feel a little contrived/ cliched, only really coming into their own in the films last quarter.

The film runs at the one hour and twenty-four-minute mark- blending well home invasion tension/unpredictability, kidnap-based action, and few quite extreme moments of brutal fight-based violence.

The Threat certainly is an interesting take on the neo-noir form- switching between the tense at points sweaty claustrophobia of the house, and the busy/ manic-ness of the city. I'd say my only criticism is that one of the early scenes set at the reception of Misawa's work colleges felt somewhat out of place, overlong, and took away from the key flow/ start of the film.

This new Blu-Ray features a great bold and crisp black-and-white print, which is well-defined throughout. On the extras side, we get a commentary track from Japanese film expert Tom Mes, and as always this is a wonderfully researched and informative affair. He starts off by talking about how this is the oldest film to date to get English subtitles from director Kinji Fukasaku.  He talks about the other possible meanings of the film's Japanese title- Treat, Intimidation, Blackmail.   He gives a bio of the lead actor Rentarô Mikuni- who we find out was seen as a traitor at one point, as he worked for two different studios- which was frowned on at the time. He discusses how the film featured many crew members from Kinji Fukasaku past films. He talks about the clashing of different social classes within the film,  and the two criminal characters are well-known faces in Japanese genre films.  We find out the film didn’t do well. Later on, he talks about the expressive face of the film's lead, the director's good characterization, and more. So another must-play track.

Otherwise, we have Warning Warning Danger Danger(18.42)  a video appreciation from critic and Japanese film specialist Mark Schilling. This is ok, though I’m not sure if I gained much from it, and I’m afraid his delivery is a little clunky in places. We also get a trailer and image gallery.

The finished release comes with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella.  An Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Hayley Scanlon, and a double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella.

The Threat is a largely taut ‘n’ tense neo-noir, with some great acting, and some headily disorienting/ brutal moments. It’s great to see it getting this release from Arrow Video, and here’s looking forward to seeing more early work from Kinji Fukasaku.