Third Window Films, based in London, specializes in restoring and releasing Asian films – often overlooked, long unavailable, or never before released outside of Asia – on Blu-ray and DVD. I received a wonderful package with 4 of their blu-rays:

New Religion & Neu Mirrors (2022–2024, Japan, dir. Keishi Kondo)

Keishi Kondo is perhaps the most contemporary discovery in this set. New Religion premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival and later made the rounds at Slamdance and several genre-focused events across Europe, earning praise for its slow-burn descent into psychological horror. The film follows a grieving mother who becomes entangled in a spiritual and bodily unraveling after the death of her daughter. Kondo’s style is atmospheric and elliptical, drawing on the aesthetics of slow cinema and experimental horror. What makes this release particularly special is the inclusion of Neu Mirrors, the previously unreleased sequel (just 30 min.) that deepens the first film’s metaphysical architecture.

Tokyo Pop (1988, USA/Japan, dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui)

A fascinating oddity that has only recently begun to find its audience again, Tokyo Pop was out of circulation for decades before being restored in 4K. It screened at SXSW in 2023 to strong renewed interest. Fran Rubel Kuzui, best known for producing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, directs this cross-cultural romance with a light touch and sharp eye for subcultural detail. Carrie Hamilton plays a disillusioned American singer adrift in Tokyo’s underground scene, where she meets Goro (played by Diamond Yukai of the rock band Red Warriors). What could have been a kitschy East-meets-West fantasy instead becomes a portrait of youthful drift and connection, filtered through the neon dream of late-80s Japan.

Hanging Garden (2005, Japan, dir. Toshiaki Toyoda)

Toshiaki Toyoda occupies a unique space in Japanese cinema: an enfant terrible turned spiritual chronicler. After the cult success of Blue Spring and 9 Souls, Toyoda delivered Hanging Garden, a deceptively quiet family drama that unspools like a chamber piece of repression and buried trauma. At its center is a family that has pledged total honesty with each other, exposing then the cracks in their emotional architecture. Released theatrically in Japan and featured in a handful of international festivals, the film has rarely been accessible in the West until now. It shows Toyoda in a more restrained register, but no less potent, with a sensibility that recalls Ozu filtered through Bergman.

The Box Man (2024, Japan, dir. Gakuryu Ishii)

Adapted from Kōbō Abe’s existential novel, The Box Man is the last film of the great director Gakuryu Ishii. It is surreal story in which a cardboard box becomes the perfect shell for men who want to withdraw from society, and gaze without being seen. It was selected in the Berlinale Special at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 17 February 2024. Here he slows his pace, crafting a study in stillness, opacity, and alienation. It’s a work of austere beauty, rooted in paranoia and psychic collapse, something like slow cinema mixed with Tokyo underground.

Go check their website, and Long live physical media!