V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		3.5

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 18, 2025

In 1976 folks in the United States were celebrating the bicentennial anniversary celebration of a famous revolution, but another revolution of a technological rather than a political variety was just beginning to unfold across the ocean in Japan at virtually the same time. That was the year that VHS began its scrappy upstart status against Betamax in a format war which in its day was probably at least as notorious as the one that decades later marked the rollout of high definition home video with competing HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats. Betamax of course ultimately lost that battle (rather incredibly both Betamax player and VCR production extended well into the 21st century, despite having been supplanted by disc formats), and by the time Toei had the bright idea to start producing direct to video releases in 1989, VHS was the dominant format. In a way it's kind of fascinating to compare and contrast Toei's decision to provide "product" to its chain of video stores with the way the major Hollywood studios used to provide feature films for the theater chains they owned until United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. forced the studios to divest those properties in 1948. One way or the other, despite economic tribulations in Japan which had severely impacted (theatrically exhibited) movie attendance, the direct to video market exploded for Toei, so much so that other major (and minor) Japanese studios soon followed suit by offering their own straight to video productions, though Toei had actually trademarked the term V-Cinema to describe their product. This collection of V-Cinema outings from Arrow includes a nonet of titles that tend to feature hardscrabble criminal types, including the film that started the whole V-Cinema craze, Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage.

Reviews of the films in this collection can be accessed by clicking on the following links:

Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage Blu-ray review

Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet Blu- ray review

Stranger Blu-ray review

Carlos Blu-ray review

Burning Dog Blu-ray review

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Death Threat Blu-ray review

The Hitman: Blood Smells Like Roses Blu-ray review

Danger Point: The Road to Hell Blu-ray review

XX: Beautiful Hunter Blu-ray review

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality is assessed in the above linked reviews.

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality is assessed in the above linked reviews.

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements on each disc are detailed in the above linked reviews (note that all but XX: Beautiful Hunter share two films to a disc). This is another nicely packaged set from Arrow, with an O ring slipcover surrounding a slipbox which encloses four keepcases (see individual reviews for details). There's also an really nicely illustrated collector's booklet. As mentioned in the individual reviews, the keepcases all have art cards.

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Let's face it: straight to video fare, whether V-Cinema or otherwise, is rarely if ever in "masterpiece" territory, and there's a certain "it is what it is" quality to all of these productions. That said, there's considerable historical interest here, and there's actually some surprisingly spry writing and performance acumen. All of these films were shot on miniscule budgets and frankly look like it, though contextually speaking technical merits are generally solid, and as usual Arrow has aggregated outstanding supplements all presented in handsome packaging. Recommended.