Stray Cat Rock

[Ashirg]

Is it still titled "Collction" on the cover?

[TonyleStephanois]

No we removed it entirely. It now just says STRAY CAT ROCK.

[med]

Gary's cleaned up his act lately but he couldn't resist getting in a shot of women in their bras.

[EddieLarkin]

He actually let a nipple slip through in his Goto review!

[domino harvey]

Just got another delay notice from Amazon

[colinr0380]

Tom Mes at Midnight Eye on the Stray Cat Rock series

[feihong]

Interesting article. I know the prevailing wisdom is that Sex Hunter is the best of the films, but I found Machine Animal equally good--very tense and socially adroit, with dynamite musical numbers and the most interest girl-gang dynamic of the varied episodes of the series. Actually, the three directed by Hasebe are all very high quality, and the Fujita films seem quite slack to me. Mes says that Hasebe remained with Nikkatsu into the pink era, but I believe that's not entirely correct. I had read an interview in which he said he left the company, and then rejoined when he was told he'd be able to add violence to the pink films he would eventually make.

[Charles]

Latest email just received:

Due to some severe faults at the manufacturing plant, all of our copies of Stray Cat Rock: The Collection have had a 15 cert printed on them instead of the accurate 18 and some copies are also missing the collectors booklet.

To ensure that all copies are corrected, we have had to recall all of the box sets so a new sleeve can be reprinted and the booklets reinserted. Unfortunately this means that the release date has had to be pushed back to October 27th.

We can only apologise that this release has been fraught with delays and rest assured we are trying our hardest to ensure that this situation is rectified as soon as possible...

[chatterjees]

Latest email just received:

Due to some severe faults at the manufacturing plant, all of our copies of Stray Cat Rock: The Collection have had a 15 cert printed on them instead of the accurate 18 and some copies are also missing the collectors booklet.

To ensure that all copies are corrected, we have had to recall all of the box sets so a new sleeve can be reprinted and the booklets reinserted. Unfortunately this means that the release date has had to be pushed back to October 27th.

We can only apologise that this release has been fraught with delays and rest assured we are trying our hardest to ensure that this situation is rectified as soon as possible...

I also received this email 5 minutes ago. I am little confused now. There is a second part to this segment of the email.

​If you do receive a copy with the inaccurate certification information or without a booklet please contact the manufacturer direct via email: enfield.customerservices@sonydadc.com or by telephone: 0870 241 5160 who will be able to assist you.

So, they started shipping this box before finding out this error? If they did, they did it for only a few customers, not all? It was not clear, but I guess they did not ship my box. There was no shipping confirmation email for me. This is a weird situation, at least for the US customers. If they receive the defective box, now they have to contact manufacturer, not Arrow!

[MichaelB]

That's because it's the manufacturer's fault, not Arrow's. They're as annoyed about this as you are. (Probably a lot more so, in fact!)

[feihong]

Just knowing this set will eventually be mine is so great, I don't care about the delay. I remember when Life Gamble was going to be released on blu ray, but BCI went out of business on the street date for the disc. That was agony––would it be released? Would it not? Ultimately it became sadly clear that it would not come out (although one copy did sell on ebay for an astronomical amount). But Arrow won't be that way. I'm pretty confident this set will eventually arrive in my mailbox.

[Landjorden]

Yes! Finally got my "Order dispatched" notise in the mail today. Looking forward to this one

[Telstar]

Yes! Finally got my "Order dispatched" notise in the mail today. Looking forward to this one

I also received a dispatch order...but does this mean copies are possibly being sent out without booklets?

[Landjorden]

Well, this little bugger arrived today and just as you feared Telstar there was no booklet, I don't know if there is any way to get ahold of one but I will contact Zavvi (where I had my pre-order) and if that doesn't help I guess I will try with arrow directly

[EddieLarkin]

Neither will be able to help. As per Arrow you need to get in touch with SonyDADC via email (enfield.customerservices@sonydadc.com) quoting catalogue number “FCD906” with a copy of proof of purchase in the email. They'll be able to send you the booklet.

[Landjorden]

Ok, thanks Eddie
I sent an email to the above adress, now we just wait and hope

[Telstar]

I also received my Stray Cat set from Zavvi yesterday, sans booklet (or correct outer cover).
Just out of curiosity, since I evidently won't be seeing it for a while, how is the booklet anyway?

[domino harvey]

And I just got another delay notice from Amazon

[EddieLarkin]

Weird, the release date has changed on Amazon. But Arrow said only a few hours ago that the release date is still October 27th. They have received their corrected stock so should be shipping soon.

[dr_anticant]

So, as someone who loves shonky British 70s trash cinema of the Pete walker/ Lindsey Shonteff ilk, but who wasn't so taken with, say Kill Bill, is there much for me here? This release is generating a lot of excitement but is a bit of a lacuna for me knowledge-wise.

[luridedith]

The movies aren't anything like Kill Bill, more Jackie Brown maybe (if we HAD to compare them to something by Tarantino) in terms of being retro but not so stylized and cartoonish. They feel like a throwback to 50s rock n' roll films (ala Roger Corman) with extra bite and sadism. I personally think they are a blast to watch. The plots are thin and shitty and obviously slapped together last minute but the style and the music... there's nothing else quite like it.

[feihong]

There is a group of Toei girl gang/girl biker gang movies, which ran longer and which I think generally come after these pictures. Those movies have a lot of nudity and yakuza-style violence. Those films, with stories straight out of the Toei yakuza movie factory, seem crass and exploitative nowadays (not a criticism exactly), but with a pessimistic and very conservative tone.

I say that by way of comparison. The Stray Cat Rock movies are much more anarchic, either alienated from society (the Hasebe films) or goofy and loose (the Fujita ones). Though they are fairly exploitative as well, the Stray Cat Rock movies feel less mechanically so. The plots are messy (the Fujita ones especially so), but films are more artistically interesting than the Toei films. They also deal with aspects of Japanese counterculture which the Toei films hardly touch. They don't seem as cynical and hard as the Toei pictures, perhaps in part because the music acts that play through the films make the movies seem casually like musicals, and the anarchic spirit of the films is something that was at the heart of Nikkatsu's best 60s crime films.

The Corman films are a good comparison. They're a bit more comic-booky than The Wild Angels though, and less the conservative scold that some of the Jack Nicholson biker gang movies were. Meiko Kaji is, I think, at her best in these movies, and the films flatter her more than the more than the more grueling Female Convict Scorpion movies or the more stately and somewhat awkward Lady Snowblood pictures.

I have found the movies really fun and very genuine-feeling--which is not to say that they seem realistic (totally not so), but that they feel sincerely-felt (especially the Hasebe ones). I think if Larry Cohen had been assigned to make Electra-Glide in Blue with an all-female cast, and then to make a bunch of sequels right in a row? Kind of like that.

[manicsounds]

Maybe if this set does well, Arrow will try to release the 4 "Terrifying Girls High School" films from Toei.

(Just like "Stray Cat Rock", only 1 movie in the series got a region 1 DVD release in the past)

[colinr0380]

Oh yes, Terrifying Girls High School: Lynch Law Classroom, released in the Pinky Violence Collection back in 2005 with three other selections from different film series. I was very grateful for the Pinky Violence Collection at the time, but it would be great to see more complete film series rather than individual episodes!

[feihong]

I really like Girl Boss: Crazy Ball Game. It's too bad the Panik House set didn't merit digging deeper into that catalog, as you say.