Stranger Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Stranger Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 18, 2025

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of the V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal collection from Arrow Video.

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.

Stranger might jokingly be thought of as an unlikely mashup of elements drawn from Taxi Driver and Duel, with maybe just a soupçon of 9 to 5 thrown in for good measure. In this case the cabbie is a female named Kiriko ( Yûko Natori) who may suffer some of the PTSD that Travis Bickle does, though in this case instead of combat based like Bickle, for a roiling past that saw her incarcerated for fraud she probably didn't actually commit. Consigned now to a "career" where she's largely surrounded by misogynistic males, Kiriko's almost hermetic defense strategies start to crumble when she begins getting stalked by a spooky truck following her around.

Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Stranger is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Arrow lumps all of the films together in their page devoted to the presentations in this set's insert booklet, as follows:

The films in this collection represent a period of film production in Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s where films were made by the Toei Company specifically for home video. Beginning with Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage, these "V-Cinema" titles were produced quickly and inexpensively, but afforded filmmakers significant freedom when it came to censorship, resulting in riskier content than what had been produced for cinema distribution.

As such, the modest origins of these titles can be seen in these presentations. All films have been remastered by the Toei Company in high definition and are presented in the 1.33:1 home video format of the time.

This presentation may be unavoidably hobbled by the frequent use of low light nighttime material, sequences that can often not offer much in the way of fine detail and which can occasionally be further visited by inconsistent black levels. During better lit moments, detail levels can improve markedly, but the overall appearance of this outing is somewhat dowdy and fairly brown looking a lot of the time. Probably understandably, close-ups tend to offer the best detail levels. Grain can be fairly mottled looking, especially in lower light scenes. As with most of the other films in this collection, minor but noticeable age related wear and tear and crop up. My score is 3.25.

Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Stranger features LPCM 2.0 audio in the original Japanese. The urban setting gives some opportunities for decent ambient environmental effects, but this is another straight to video release that obviously didn't waste a lot of time designing overly ambitious sonic elements. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Stranger than Fiction (HD; 18:01) is an interview with writer and director Shunichi Nagasaki. Subtitled in English.


• Introduction by Masaki Tanioka (HD; 4:32) is accessible under the Play Film menu and is authored to lead directly to the feature. Subtitled in English.

Arrow has packaged Stranger and Carlos together on one disc, and the keepcase features a reversible sleeve highlighting each title, as well as enclosing an art card for each film.

Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stranger takes a rather circuitous route on its way to delivering a tale of quasi-female empowerment, and those very detours may overly labor what is in essence a pretty basic narrative despite some gonzo aspects. There are moments of real tension here, but maybe not enough to sustain the entire enterprise. Technical merits are decent (video) to very good (audio), and the supplements enjoyable, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.