Vinegar Syndrome and Their Partner Labels

[domino harvey]

Is there any reason for them to split off this many times, other than wanting to release more titles that they don’t have to send to the subscribers who prepaid?

[Peacock]

Fantastic news. There was no way 88 and Third Window would have been able to release all the major Pinku titles themselves so hopefully this will help get more out there.

+1 on Satō!

[Mr Sausage]

The only pinku film I’ve seen I watched because of its surrealist cover of a woman trapped inside a giant bottle like she was a message about to be launched to sea. This surrealist touch is, thankfully, in the movie itself, so I wasn’t merely baited by the ad team. But it only happens in the last five minutes. The rest of the thing is tedious softcore incest porn that has an unpleasant fixation on bodily secretions. The big seduction scene between the brother and sister starts off with the sister having diarrhea in the ocean, something the film shows us in closeup because I guess there’s nothing more erotic than the sight of fecal matter flooding a tidepool. It seems to do it for the voyeur brother, tho’, as he immediately grabs his naked sister and starts making out with her on the rocks. When the brother’s wife discovers this affair, the siblings seal her in giant bottle (it has a tapering neck, too, so I have no idea how they got her in there), have sex right there in front of her, and then launch her to sea to die of hunger, thirst, heatstroke, and suffocation, in ascending order of likelihood. They claim she’s to be their message in a bottle, telling the world of their taboo romance or something, but they’ve also given her no provisions, no air holes, and sent her out into the Okinawan sun in a giant light magnifier. She’s about to become the green army man to a bored kid’s magnifying glass. Weird, gross movie.

I’m still disappointed to find out that these Roman Pornos are not a series of Caligula-ish historical erotic films starring Japanese people as Roman citizens, but that roman is short for romance. I spent years thinking the Japanese softcore market was crazily specific.

[dwk]

Is there any reason for them to split off this many times, other than wanting to release more titles that they don’t have to send to the subscribers who prepaid?

No. Having one sub-label that does something very different than your mainline could be understandable, but having 8 that basically do the same stuff as your mainline is just to remove titles from the subscription.

[agnamaracs]

This is exactly their 8th sub-label, after VS Archives (56 releases), VS Labs (19), VS Pictures (9), VS Ultra (13), Cinematographe (66 - I guess this one works well), Degausser (30 - though 21 of them are LE Deluxe LED VHS) & Distribpix (8).

You forgot the "adult" labels Melusine, Peekarama, and Quality X.

They have four subsidiaries just for smut.

[pianocrash]

Is there any reason for them to split off this many times, other than wanting to release more titles that they don’t have to send to the subscribers who prepaid?

Taxes? Future merchandising opportunities? That last straw when the remainder of their non-owned distro labels finally leave so they still have sub-labels to promote at all?

It seems like most of the above are already true, but it just feels like a hyper-specific form of marketing (niche within a niche) so that the collecting of slips, t-shirts & trinkets can rain down like cigarettes onto a 2005 Mac Demarco.

You forgot the "adult" labels Melusine, Peekarama, and Quality X.

They have four subsidiaries just for smut.

Maybe it's a canary situation in case the rest all falls short, say, if Cinematographe were to become it's own Vinegar Syndrome one day because it overtook the mainline, so BAM!, we still rule! Buy something or die!

But also: they've done a poor job of keeping the adult lines promoted, though I know the purpose was to separate the whole for Paypal's & future mainstream distribution sake.

I feel like I've missed out on a full six months of releases (nevermind that the adult material's releases have slowed like a familiar, unwelcome drip to anyone who grew up in the 70's, 80's, or 90's). :-$

[MichaelB]

The Melusine releases thus far have been magnificent - I'm not normally one to rhapsodise about packaging, but they're seriously deluxe - but with just five to date they're not exactly churning them out at speed.

[tenia]

The more sub-labels, the less likely it will be for them not to overlap with the mainline and/or with each other. It's just mechanical... and showing here. I can understand having something special like VSP, because they're contemporaneous movies, VS-distributed (in theaters) ones, etc, but VS Labs ? Half of these could have been in the mainline, and it's even worse for VS Ultra.

This is exactly their 8th sub-label, after VS Archives (56 releases), VS Labs (19), VS Pictures (9), VS Ultra (13), Cinematographe (66 - I guess this one works well), Degausser (30 - though 21 of them are LE Deluxe LED VHS) & Distribpix (8).

You forgot the "adult" labels Melusine, Peekarama, and Quality X.

They have four subsidiaries just for smut.

I went through the sub-labels listed on VS website. IIRC, since Melusine split through its own website, the other 2 sub-labels are there too, which is why I haven't listed them.

But if we consider them still VS, then yeah, that's 3 more.

[agnamaracs]

I went through the sub-labels listed on VS website. IIRC, since Melusine split through its own website, the other 2 sub-labels are there too, which is why I haven't listed them.

Though I can't exactly check right now, I think Distribpix is listed on both. (There was the whole thing where they both had different covers for Last Tango in Paris.) I'm guessing it's allowed on the main site because it's more exploitation, less penetration.

Unrelated: why is the coming sale called the "Vinegar Academy" sale?

[dwk]

Unrelated: why is the coming sale called the "Vinegar Academy" sale?

Rumor is that they "found" copies of the OOP release of the first 3 Vice Academy" movies.

[mfunk9786]

The Melusine releases thus far have been magnificent - I'm not normally one to rhapsodise about packaging, but they're seriously deluxe - but with just five to date they're not exactly churning them out at speed.

I bought the first one, watched it, and it's now a wart on my shelf. Will probably never need to engage with it again, but it's verboten to sell on eBay and too weird to throw into somebody's order as an extra.

[Calvin]

Kani's Facebook on the passing of Mike De Leon, which seems to confirm a future release of Batch '81:

Before we met Mike de Leon, we had heard all about his volatile nature (his words, not ours), which luckily, we never experienced first hand. Instead, the Mike we knew was always wryly helpful with our many questions about his work and LVN. We first met him at the Robinsons Magnolia mall in Quezon City to discuss Kani Releasing putting out his work in North America — but we mostly ended up talking about LVN, the studio’s history, his work archiving it, and his efforts at restoration and preservation.

This afternoon I opened up his memoir LAST LOOK BACK to a random page. It was an interview Mike gave Hammy Sotto in 1982 about BATCH ‘81. Even in this hour of his passing, I think Mike guided me to this page exactly as we prepare to work on this film, impatient with us to get back to work on his films. It is comforting to hear his voice through these pages, and I’m reminded, again, why his anti-authoritarian work is ever more relevant given the current political climate — not only in the Philippines. It’s hard to sum up his work as he worked across genres and decades, but, broadly speaking, Mike was preoccupied with the experience of being Filipino — in a lineage that spans Jose Rizal to Citizen Jake.

His life was dedicated to film. Not only the making of it as a producer, director, cinematographer, and writer, but also as an archivist and historian. Losing Mike is perhaps not a surprise, but news we were hoping would not come so soon. It has been a pleasure to learn from him, and a privilege to bring his work back to North America. Rest in power.

Mike de Leon (1947-2025)

[rwiggum]

Unrelated: why is the coming sale called the "Vinegar Academy" sale?

Rumor is that they "found" copies of the OOP release of the first 3 Vice Academy" movies.

Looks like they did one (er, three) better!

[Yakushima]

One of the VS obscurities I had a blast watching and can heartily recommend. The Grave is back from being OOP for a long time - they have 5 copies in stock.

[swo17]

And gone

[Yakushima]

And gone

Hopefully, to the forum members. I hope this film will be picked up by Arrow in the future - it can use a better restoration and juicy extras.

[Peacock]

This special limited edition Blu-ray comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Luke Insect), includes a 40-page perfect bound book, and is limited to 4,000 units. It is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them.

The 1970s through 1990s saw a boom in transgressive genre filmmaking throughout Asia, but particularly in Japan where the "Pinku Eiga" became one of the most popular types of films produced in the country. With young filmmakers seizing an opportunity to hone their craft, countless soon-to-be celebrated directors created work which were more daring, unusual, and often shocking than just about any of the other genre cinema ergering across the globe. Pink Line will present exclusive new restorations of select works from key Asian erotic filmmakers, with a focus on Japan's Pinku Eiga genre.

One of the most esteemed and transgressive filmmakers ever to work in Japan's explosively popular Pink Film genre, Hisayasu Satô crafted erotic films that were both genre-defying and artfully-minded. While Satô's work is infused with horror and thriller tropes, it boasts a punk and avant-garde aesthetic singularly his own. In this debut release, Pink Line begins to explore this immense body of work with three of Satô's most outlandish and profound features, each newly and exclusively restored in 2K from their 35mm original camera negatives with newly-translated English subtitles, all under the supervision of Satô himself.

In LUSTMORD (aka Pleasure Kill), Satô commences his meditation on the fusion of sex and death. Eiji, a reclusive and awkward teenage boy, is fixated on creating a serum capable of breaking down the barrier between pleasure and pain, much to the dismay of his research physician mother. Deciding to conduct his own experiments, Eiji slips the serum to several women, but is unprepared for the horrifying results. Later remade by Satô as the straight horror feature Naked Blood, this early directing effort conjures a remarkable waking nightmare approach, as the impending threat of violence and insanity permeates every scene as it builds towards a typically cynical and cryptic conclusion.

RE-WIND (aka Celluloid Nightmare) functions as Satô's tribute to Michael Powell's masterpiece Peeping Tom. After a grisly, point-of-view snuff videotape is found in a refrigerator, a young man becomes obsessed with discovering who made it and whether or not the brutal murder was real. As he delves into Tokyo's underground video scene, his own perversions come to the fore as he grows ever closer to uncovering the shocking truth, alongside a female reporter who calls herself Crime Hunter. Fusing gruesome gore and raw sex while wryly playing with the artifice inherent to the video format, RE-WIND remains one of Satô's most powerful and impressive early works.

LOVE LETTER IN THE SAND (aka Pervert Ward: Torturing the White Uniform), is Satô crafting a noir-inspired erotic thriller, using blazing, heavily-gelled color. During a month of unusually heavy rain in Tokyo, a mystery assailant has been brutally assaulting and killing people with a metal bat. When a handsome young man with amnesia is found outside an area hospital, the nurse who discovered him begins to suspect that he may in fact be the assailant. But her own strange erotic fixations with him, and the questionable involvement of the doctor tasked with the amnesia victim, lead them all down an increasingly twisted path of deeply-rooted trauma and violence.

directed by: Hisayasu Satô
starring: Masae Abe, Sayaka Hitomi, Kiyomi Itô, Maya Shiraki, Yoko Fujita,
Shigeru Sasaki, Nanako Fujitani, Yui Hoshikawa
1987, 1988, 1988 / 58 min, 64 min, 61 min / 1.85:1 / Japanese DTS-HD MA 1.0

Additional info:

2-Disc Region Free Blu-ray
40-page perfect bound book (limited edition only) includes essays by Ariel Esteban Cayer, Tori Potenza, and Jasper Sharp
Reversible cover artwork
Newly translated English subtitles
LUSTMORD

Commentary track with Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp for Lustmord
"Kill Kill" - an interview with director Hisayasu Satô
"Written in Blood" - an interview with writer Taketoshi Watari
"Walking in Circles" - a locations featurette with director Hisayasu Satô covering all three films
RE-WIND

Commentary track with film critic Simon Abrams
"Visual Pleasure" - an interview with director Hisayasu Satô
"Caught in the Act" - an interview with actress Kiyomi Itô
"Shooting His Shot" - an interview with writer Yumeno Shiro
LOVE LETTER IN THE SAND

Commentary track with film historian & author Samm Deighan
"Medical Mayhem" - an interview with director Hisayasu Satô
"Pretty in Pink" - an interview with filmmaker Risaku Kiridoshi

[luxta]

The Strange Affair from Vinegar Syndrome Labs looks interesting.

[Calvin]

Leila and the Wolves has also been announced from new partner label Several Futures. Looks like they have the films of Axelle Ropert lined up amongst others

[diamonds]

Glad Ropert's films are finally coming to Blu-ray. I was foolishly holding out hope they'd go with Say Ahh… for Miss and the Doctors though!

[Red Screamer]

Leila and the Wolves has also been announced from new partner label Several Futures. Looks like they have the films of Axelle Ropert lined up amongst others

Great news! Plus films by the wild Pierre Creton & Cahiers favorite The Temple Woods Gang.

[beamish14]

Gang Related is a real gem. Tupac Shakur was excellent in that and the very surreal and underrated Gridlock’d

[What A Disgrace]

Kani Releasing will be matching Third Window's efforts witbh their first boxed set, dedicated to the Maiku Hama trilogy, and it is set to be part of the October slate.

[mfunk9786]

October releases are somehow even worse than usual. Not sure why/how they expect people to open their wallets for stuff like Tromeo and Juliet for $40+shipping

[yoloswegmaster]

They are releasing Ngai Choi Lam's Men from the Gutter, so this month is far from a travesty.