Underworld Beauty Blu-ray - Michitaro Mizushima, Mari Shiraki

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Underworld Beauty" or "Beauty of the Underworld" or "Ankokugai no Bijo")

Japan 1958

Retrieving the diamonds he stashed before his arrest, thief Miyamoto hopes to help his old partner Mihara, crippled during the heist. Their former boss, crime lord Oyane, offers to mediate with a foreign buyer, but secretly wants the stones for himself. The deal goes awry when gunmen appear on the scene. Mihara swallows the diamonds but dies in the chase, leaving a valuable corpse in the police morgue. Miyamoto forms an uneasy alliance with Mihara's wildcat sister Akiko to keep the gems away from gangsters, cops and even Akiko's greedy boyfriend. This wildly inventive early noir sees Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tattooed Life) infectiously playing with genre rules and gender stereotypes.

***

The moment he’s released from prison, the honorable gangster Miyamoto recovers the stolen diamonds he had stashed before getting pinched. When he returns to his old haunt to make good by a friend who took a bullet for him, he is diverted by the greedy Boss Oyane and his insatiable taste for Miyamoto’s precious stones.

By the age of 75, master of style, Seijun Suzuki had consistently been at the forefront of cinematic cool for over five decades. From Quentin Tarantino to Jim Jarmusch, Suzuki’s influence on the contemporary action genre is undeniable. Now, at 80, Suzuki is entertaining an ever wider and younger audience with his latest theatrical release Pistol Opera.

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Theatrical Release: March 25th, 1958

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Review: Radiance Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Box Cover		CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures:
Distribution	Radiance Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:27:09.724
Video	2.39:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 41,294,008,178 bytes Feature: 25,446,724,992 bytes Video Bitrate: 34.85 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	LPCM Audio Japanese 2304 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitles	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Radiance Films 2.39:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 41,294,008,178 bytes Feature: 25,446,724,992 bytes Video Bitrate: 34.85 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • New interview with critic Mizuki Kodama (2024, 14:39) • Bonus feature: Seijun Suzuki’s Love Letter (1959, 39:28) • Audio commentary on Love Letter by Suzuki biographer William Carroll (2024) • Trailer (3:15) Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Claudia Siefen-Leitich and an archival review of the film Blu-ray Release Date: January 27trh, 2025 Transparent Blu-ray Case Chapters 10

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Radiance Films Blu-ray (January 2025): Radiance Films have transferred Seijun Suzuki's Underworld Beauty to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New 4K restoration of the film by Nikkatsu Corporation". It's darker than the 20-year old SD transfer that shows some brightening directly beside the 1080P. The new image quality is a nuanced boost as the higher resolution exemplifies detail and grain texture to higher degrees. AS anticipated, it is noticeably sharper.

NOTE: We have added 90 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Radiance Films use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original Japanese language. Underworld Beauty has aggressive moments (fight sequences) but the jazzy score adds an appealing flavor. It was by Naozumi Yamamoto (Black Tight Killers, Branded to Kill, Outlaw: Gangster VIP, Massacre Gun, Gate of Flesh and many of Yoji Yamada's Tora-San series) with nightclub dancing encapsulating an overall advancement to lossless showing in the consistency of dialogue. Radiance Films offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Radiance Films Blu-ray offers a new 1/4 hour interview with critic Mizuki Kodama (co-author of Anti-Romance Film Theory: From 'I Loved You Like a Bouquet' to Hong Sang-soo.) She discusses Underworld Beauty as one of the earliest examples of Seijun Suzuki's undermining of filmmaking conventions, especially in his depiction of the film's heroine. Included is the 40-minute film Love Letter (Rabu retâ) directed by Seijun Suzuki the year after Underworld Beauty. This short feature is a melodrama shot on location in the snowy Nagano mountains and features bold uses of editing that make it a notable precursor to his later Tokyo Drifter. It involves a nightclub manager who is in love with his pianist. However, she has a ranger boyfriend who's been permanently stationed in the mountain wilderness. Their only communication is by letter. As time passes the correspondence slows to a trickle. Then nothing. The manager persuades the girl to visit the boy. The film can also be viewed with an audio commentary by Suzuki biographer William Carroll (Suzuki Seijun and Postwar Japanese Cinema). Lastly is a trailer and the package has a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Claudia Siefen-Leitich (Alice in Illness) and an archival review of the film.

Seijun Suzuki's Underworld Beauty is a crime genre gem with the director's delightful Nikkatsu B-stylings including the use of mannequins, stolen diamonds, close-ups of tattoos and hidden knives with ex-cons, double-crosses, and a more sympathetic femme fatale. The cold black and white, and scope, cinematography add further layers of dark-cinema joy. Radiance Films offers another Blu-ray worthy of digital library space. An easily revisit-able, pulpy, 'world noir' keeper from an eccentric flame-keeper of the genre.