Every month Arrow Video empties a fresh crate of restorations onto collectors’ shelves, and every month the challenge is deciding which slipcovers your budget can actually absorb. August is a particularly cruel one, because the label has lined up five titles with almost nothing in common except quality: a First Amendment courtroom drama, one of the most influential horror films of the century, a Homeric war epic, a hyperviolent ninja obscurity, and a rain-soaked whodunit. Here is the whole slate, and my honest read on which discs earn the spot on the shelf.
The One That Matters Most: “Ju-On: The Grudge” (August 11)
If you buy one disc this month, make it this. Takashi Shimizu’s 2002 curse machine is not just a great horror film, it is a genuine historical document, the movie that exported a specific strain of Japanese dread to the entire world and, in the process, made Shimizu the first Japanese filmmaker to top the US box office when he directed his own American remake.
The staggered, non-chronological structure, the croaking boy, the woman crawling down the stairs in a way your nervous system files under “wrong” forever, this is the blueprint that the entire mid-2000s J-horror boom was built on. Arrow’s 4K restoration from the original camera negative is the kind of preservation this film has long deserved, and the extras are deep, including multiple commentaries, a Shimizu interview, and a discussion of the cultural forces behind the series.
There is a nice bit of synchronicity here, too. Shimizu is being honored with a career award at this year’s Fantasia, where he is premiering two brand-new films, and MGM+ recently gave his defining creation a fresh spotlight. The man is having a moment, and this disc is the foundation of why.
The Prestige Pick: “The People vs. Larry Flynt” (August 4)
Miloš Forman’s 1996 biopic makes its global 4K debut in a 30th-anniversary edition, and it is a richer, thornier film than its reputation as “the Woody Harrelson smut movie” suggests. Forman, who fled two totalitarian regimes before making it to Hollywood, was drawn again and again to provocateurs and outsiders, and he frames Flynt not as a hero but as the unlikely, deeply unlovable vehicle for a genuine First Amendment principle. The film essentially argues that free speech is only meaningfully tested by the speech you find repugnant.
Harrelson earned an Oscar nomination, Forman another for direction, and the supporting bench is loaded, Edward Norton in an early role as the crusading attorney, Courtney Love giving a genuinely startling performance as Althea, plus Crispin Glover, James Cromwell, and a young Norm Macdonald. The restoration comes from the original negative with hours of archival and new extras. For anyone who values adult, ideas-driven studio filmmaking of a kind that has largely vanished, this is the classiest disc on the slate.
The Blockbuster: “Troy” (August 18)
Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 sword-and-sandal epic gets 4K remasters of both the Theatrical and the superior Director’s Cut, and Arrow has timed it with real cunning: it lands just as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is bearing down on theaters, when the whole culture is about to be thinking about Homer again.
Troy has aged into a curious position. It was treated as a slightly bloated star vehicle on release, but two decades later its old-school, practical-scale grandeur, tens of thousands of extras, real sets, Brad Pitt at the height of his physical stardom as a genuinely petulant Achilles, plays as increasingly rare and appealing in the age of weightless digital armies. The cast is a murderer’s row, Eric Bana’s Hector is the film’s true heart, and Peter O’Toole quietly walks off with the whole thing in his single great scene. If you have been holding out for the definitive home-video version, this is it.
The Deep Cut: “Shogun’s Ninja” (August 25)
This is the one for the true heads, and Arrow deserves credit for keeping the lights on for films like it. A gloriously unhinged 1980 slice of ninja mayhem from Norifumi Suzuki, Shogun’s Ninja is a Blu-ray rather than 4K, which is the correct call for a wild, scrappy programmer of this vintage.
The real draw is historical: it is the first starring role for Hiroyuki Sanada, now beloved worldwide from Shogun, John Wick, and Mondo, seen here as a young action prodigy under the wing of Sonny Chiba, who choreographed the mayhem with his legendary Japan Action Club. Treetop ninja duels, a deadly female bodyguard unit, and Chiba doing Chiba things. It is a specialist purchase, but that specialist audience is exactly who Arrow serves best, and the new commentary and expert interview give it real context.
The Sleeper Everyone Underrates: “Identity” (August 25)
James Mangold’s 2003 whodunit arrives on 4K with both the Theatrical and Extended Cuts, and it is a better film than its modest reputation. Ten strangers stranded at a desert motel in a downpour, picked off one by one, in an Agatha Christie setup that Mangold, working from a clever Michael Cooney script, twists into something genuinely unexpected. To say more is to ruin it, and its central turn is the sort of thing best encountered cold.
The cast is stacked with reliable character actors, John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, and the quietly extraordinary Pruitt Taylor Vince, who gets a new interview here. It is a tight, nasty, rewatchable thriller, and it has quietly become a cult favorite for good reason.
The Bottom Line
That is a brutal month for a collector’s wallet, and a wonderful one for a collector’s shelf. If you are triaging, Ju-On is the essential historical document, Larry Flynt is the prestige centerpiece, and Identity is the sleeper that will surprise you most. This is precisely the kind of month that makes the case for physical media better than any argument could, five films across four decades and three countries, restored with care and packed with context, none of them a guaranteed stream and all of them worth owning.
All five hit shelves in August via Arrow Video through MVD Entertainment Group.
