I continue to sing Radiance Films praises. They are carving out a nice little niche market in the larger Boutique Blu-ray landscape. Their focus seems to be on foreign language arthouse films that are lesser known. The type of film that would be skipped by Criterion but are generally still quite good.
Hokuriku Proxy War is a fun little Japanese Crime Drama that is a bit confusing in the story department but more than makes up for it in its action. You can read my full review here.
themidnightcafe.org 
Mat
Do you know about the Yakuza TV Crime drama “Tokyo Vice.” There were two seasons and I got hooked.
As for the convincing chaos of the action scenes in the movie you review – that reminded me of the slow motion battle scenes in Kurosawa’s “Ran” that were all soundtracked with poignant classical music. I always loved the aesthetic audacity of those scenes but only recently has it dawned on me why Kurosawa took this approach. I am curious what your take on this might be (assuming you are familiar with “Ran”)
I do not know Tokyo Vice but I’ll add it to my list of things to check out.
I have seen Ran and loved it, but it has been far too long since I watched it for me to talk intelligently about it. I’d love to hear your theory anyway, maybe it will make me do a rewatch.
I don’t know if my “theory” can be verified by real life survivors of hand to hand combat in war – my Dad served in the merchant navy in World War II – and like many veterans this was an experience that he just did not talk about (until very late in his life).
I do not know if you have ever experienced the slo-mo effect in your own experience of life. But I was once involved in a very serious road accident when I was driving. I was nineteen and I recall the events of a few seconds in very vivid detail. Time slowed down. These were life or death moments. And when you die, of course, time stops. There is no time in eternity!
So as hand to hand combat involves mortals in acute crisis and trauma – I figure that in their experience of combat time must slow down…. this is my aesthetic justification for Kurosawa’s treatment of the battle scenes in “Ran”….