SERPENT'S PATH

SERPENTH'S PATH
AKA: Hebi no Michi

Region 0 (ALL REGION PLAY / NO REGION CODE) - NTSC Format *CUSTOM DVD*

Year: 1998

Running Time: 85 min approx.

Starring: Show Aikawa, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yurei Yanagi, Shiro Shitamoto

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF "PULSE" AND "CHARISMA"

This is one half of a duo of straight-to-video yakuza pictures, with which Kiyoshi Kurosawa did the unprecedented thing of re-making a film immediately after finishing it. Serpent's Path and its companion piece, Eyes of the Spider (Kumo No Hitomi), both start from the same premise: a man taking revenge for the murder of a child...

As Serpent's Path opens we see two men, named Nijima (Kurosawa regular Sho Aikawa) and Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa), drive their car to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. Out of the trunk they drag a man, who they chain to a wall... Miyashita is out for revenge against the killers of his eight-year old daughter. They proceed to subtly torment their victim, a low-level yakuza, into a confession.

Miyashita, himself a former yakuza, is grief stricken and close to losing his sanity altogether. He laments over a perpetually looping extract of home video footage of his daughter, which he plays on a TV set in front of their captive. Nijima on the other hand is calm and collected, his detached air of professionalism keeping Miyashita's smoldering rage at bay.

But, the confession they hope for doesn't come. Instead they are given the name of another possible culprit who soon ends up in the same situation. He in turn gives them the name of another... Pretty soon these two avengers find themselves in more trouble than they bargained for and nowhere nearer the identity of the actual murderer...

Video: 16:9 Enhanced / 1.85:1 / Widescreen / Letterboxed Version
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Language: Japanese Language
Subtitles: Removable English Subtitles