Kani Releasing

06/03/2026

The cat is out of the—ahem—the DINOSAUR is out of the egg: were bringing Kadokawa’s slightly unhinged cult curio REX: A DINOSAUR’S STORY (1993) to North America — starting next month at Japan Cuts at 🦖🎄It’s Christmas in July!

"Industry disruptor and mogul Haruki Kadokawa, who revolutionized the field of film production with his media mix strategy, delivered this E.T.-adjacent curio of family entertainment to the chagrin of critics and the delight of the public—until his sudden and very public fall from grace. With creature effects by FX maestro Carlo Rambaldi (ALIEN, E.T., POSSESSION), Kadokawa’s dinosaur picture remains one of the most expensive Japanese films of all time—and Shochiku’s highest-grossing release at the time—opening in theaters only a month after JURASSIC PARK. The plot, strategically measured in a three-act structure, follows Chie (Yumi Adachi), the young daughter of a paleontologist, who befriends a Tyrannosaurus hatchling after discovering a dinosaur egg with her father. Rarely seen outside Japan and a cult item abroad, REX remains a fascinating relic of Kadokawa’s once-dominant brand of commercial filmmaking." — Japan Cuts

Big thanks to 🙏

06/03/2026

We’re so excited to roll out Lino Brocka’s 1988 q***r classic MACHO DANCER - in 4K - this summer! Previewing with our friends at ***r & opening July 10 & ! Also screening later this summer as part of their excellent exterior screening series Bleu Soir! More dates to come — including in Seattle, Washington, Austin, Vancouver, LA, Denver and Raleigh! 🕺

One of Lino Brocka’s lasting successes, MACHO DANCER admirably blends the maestro’s flair for socially conscious melodrama with pulp provocation — as well as setting the template for what would become Viva Films’ erotic niche to this day. Upon losing a reliable American client, 18-year-old gi**lo Pol (Allan Paule) leaves his native province to try his luck in the soapy gay clubs of Manila. As Pol learns the ropes alongside fellow stripper Noel (Daniel Fernando) and savvy pr******te Bambi (Jaclyn Jose), he discovers more than his young mind bargained for: an underbelly of protection rackets, human trafficking and political corruption. Underlying the film’s astutely cynical outlook on systemic, class-based exploitation in the Filipino context is a neon-lit tale of sexual self-discovery gyrating between q***r desire and heteronormative strictures, sensuality and grit, tenderness and violence. Heavily censored upon release and hugely successful overseas, MACHO DANCER follows the recent re-discovery of Lino Brocka’s BONA and is presented here in a new 4K restoration from Viva Film’s original film elements.

06/01/2026

This June, bring A NEW LOVE IN TOKYO home. Banmei Takahashi’s 1994 erotic classic, available to pre-order dot com ! 🌻

Rei (Sawa Suzuki), a seasoned do******ix and aspiring actor, spends her days rehearsing experimental theatre and her nights whipping straightlaced salarymen into ecstasy. Between appointments, she meets Ayumi (Reiko Kataoka), a call-girl bound to be the wife of a doctor or lawyer. The women bring us into their nocturnal orbit: a life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, camaraderie, and the joys of hanging out in the thriving, h***y, districts of Shinjuku and Shibuya, at the terminus of the Japanese Bubble era.

Marketed in some territories as a sequel to Ryu Murakami’s moody TOKYO DECADENCE (1992), Banmei Takahashi’s A NEW LOVE IN TOKYO unfolds as its tonal opposite: less somber sexploitation than unexpectedly sex-positive workplace comedy. Based on a book of essays by Kei Shimamoto and Nobuyoshi Araki that brings the reader into an erotic underworld, the film is also notable for featuring the cult photographer’s work. A glimpse into a bygone era of Japanese eroticism, it provided pink film, V-cinema and Director’s Company veteran Banmei Takahashi (DOOR, DOOR II) with a bridge towards a broader range of human experience.

• Region A Blu-ray
• New interview with director Banmei Takahashi
• « About the Book »: Interview with author Kei Shimamoto and magazine editor Akira Suei
• « The Real New Love in Tokyo »: Interview with working do******ix Mikako Fujishiro and actor Kanaka Shiba
• Booklet with new writing by Maari Sugawara , Dakota Noot and Nikodem Karolak
• Newly slipcover by Joyce Lee (limited to 2000 units)
• Optional English & SDH subtitles

05/31/2026

05/22/2026

Thrilled to announce that Yoko Yamanaka’s peerless DESERT OF NAMIBIA is now available to rent digitally via our friends at the Video Store! 📺 🦒

"Premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival and later winning the award for Best Film at the Bangkok World Film Festival, Yoko Yamanaka’s DESERT OF NAMIBIA brings us into the world of Kana (Yuumi Kawai), a woman living in Tokyo whose life we trace through multiple love stories. Filipe () describes the film as, “CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, if it was made by someone very into Cassavetes instead of musical theatre,” which is as good of an elevator pitch as I’ve seen for anything in a hot minute. NAMIBIA is all about placing us into the perspective of its leading lady and having us exist with her, with 𝕮arlos () theorizing, “I’d be willing to bet that Kana’s experiences in this film will resonate with many young adults who feel detached from traditional societal structures and are trying to find their place in the world. […] NAMIBIA rests on the more than capable shoulders of its lead Yuumi Kawai, as Edil (.christian) declares, “As an acting showcase for Yuumi Kawai, it’s as good as it can get; you’ll like her and then hate her and then feel for her and then like her and then hate her and then feel for her again.”

And a warm reminder that Mike De Leon’s classic and terrifying KISAPMATA and Glenn Barit’s inventive coming-of-age CLEANERS are still available to watch on the platform, conveniently and affordably! 📺

05/22/2026

🚨 All our titles - up to and including the MAIKU HAMA TRILOGY - are 50% off this weekend at for their annual Halfway to Black Friday Sale! 🚨

05/17/2026

San Francisco! presents FILIKULA a new Filipino film series co-presented with starting with Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s MORAL.

👯‍♀️👯‍♀️Four best friends are graduating from the University of the Philippines Diliman, their paths diverging in significant, if inevitable ways. Joey (Lorna Tolentino) bounces from lover to lover, couch to couch. Kathy (Gina Alajar), a mediocre singer, is intent on making it at all costs. Sylvia (Sandy Andolong) separates from her husband, while he sets up house with another man. Maritess (Anna Marin) gets married and sees her life reduced to the role of mother and housewife. Over the course of three years, the life of four friends intersects at the vanguard of wider societal changes.
Unhurried, rich with character development, and unlike any ensemble in international cinema, Moral, the midpoint film in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s landmark feminist trilogy, is often considered one of the best Filipino films ever made. Miraculously restored from near-unsalvageable elements in 2017, it remains an essential film for its bold structure and epic portrait of womanhood in the time of Martial Law. From anti-Marcos resistance to American culture creeping to new values being put in practice, Moral is a novelistic examination of an evolving Philippines society heading into the 80s with updated definitions.

05/04/2026

Director Angie Chen, Screenwriter John Chan and Actor Anthony Wong sat down with us to talk about casting Anthony Wong in his debut role as Jimmy, a mixed-race kid looking for his father in a crowd of thirsty American sailors.

Our new restoration of MY NAME AIN’T SUZIE is out now on Blu-ray! Get your copy at dot com or at a store near you.

Thank you for hosting our interview of

05/01/2026

Our May release is a couple of years in the making: a new 2K restoration of Angie Chen’s underrated and underseen late Shaw epic MY NAME AIN’T SUZIE!

In her ambitious follow up to MAYBE IT’S LOVE, Angie Chen offers a rebuke to the colonial imagination of films such as THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG (1960). Instead, she brings the Hong Kong of the 50s and 60s to life on her own terms with the story of Shui-Mei (Pat Ha), a “salt water girl” from the outskirts of the city, who finds a way out of poverty in the Red Light district of Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Over the years, she rises through the ranks, discovering a world of equal hardship and sisterly camaraderie, where colourful characters abound – among them Jimmy (Anthony Wong, in his debut role), a mixed-race kid looking for his father in the crowd of thirsty American sailors. Penned by John Chan Koon Chung (MY HEART IS THAT ETERNAL ROSE), MY NAME AIN’T SUZIE brings a New Wave sensibility to the waning years of the Shaw Brothers Studio with a decade spanning epic that resourcefully reconstructs a bygone era of Cantonese cinema. A rags-to-riches story blending romance and brothel drama, Chen’s film is above all a tale of feminine resilience at the nexus of historical events and shifting colonial powers.

Special features:

• Interview with director Angie Chen (12mins, 2026)
• Interview with screenwriter and planner John Chan (17mins, 2026)
• « Becoming Jimmy » on casting Anthony Wong, with Angie Chen, John Chan, and Anthony Wong • (8mins, 2026)
• Angie Chen on « Working in Hong Kong » (10mins, 2026)
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Booklet with new writing by Xueli Wang
• New and revised English subtitles

Now available to preorder

🎊

03/18/2026

Sil-Metropole’s catalogue is unlike any other in the landscape of Hong Kong film. In the 1980s, they launched the careers of key Hong Kong mavericks such as Johnnie To, Allen Fong, Jacob Cheung and Lawrence Lau with as many thoughtful and class-conscious films that remain underseen and unavailable in North America.

It’s a great privilege to be able to partner with to bridge this gap and further the availability of essential films such as To’s wu xia debut THE ENIGMATIC CASE, Fong’s experimental JUST LIKE WEATHER and Cheung’s provoking CAGEMEN — restored in 4K. We are also thrilled to embark on new restorations of Lawrence Lau’s street-level crime films GANGS and QUEEN OF TEMPLE STREET, with their blessing. Lau’s SPACKED OUT was a revelation to us when we re-released it in 2023 and these new transfers should surely deepen audience’s appreciation for his work, and, broadly speaking, an unsung corner of Hong Kong cinema history.