Arrow Video has officially announced that they will be kicking off 2021 with two highly-anticipated new Blu-Ray releases. This month will see the release of the Park Chan-wook thriller JSA: Joint Security Area and Richard Kelly’s ambitious Donnie Dark follow-up Southland Tales on Blu-Ray. Both releases come loaded with special features with Southland Tales being given a new lease on life with new 2K presentations of the film, approved by Kelly, in both the 145-minute theatrical cut and the 160-minute “Cannes cut.” Get all the details on both releases below!
JSA: Joint Security Area
Release Date: January 19, 2021
Before Oldboy, before The Handmaiden, visionary filmmaker Park Chan-wook helmed this gripping tale of deceit, misunderstanding and the senselessness of war. Gunfire breaks out in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, leaving two North Korean soldiers dead while a wounded South Korean soldier (Lee Byung-hun, The Good, the Bad, the Weird) flees to safety. With the tenuous peace between the two warring nations on a knife-edge, a neutral team of investigators, headed by Swiss Army Major Sophie Jean (Lee Young-ae, Lady Vengeance), is dispatched to question both sides to determine what really happened under cover of darkness out in no-man’s land. The recipient of multiple accolades, including Best Film at South Korea’s 2001 Grand Bell Awards, JSA – Joint Security Area showcases Park’s iconic style in an embryonic form, and demonstrates that humanity and common purpose can be found in the most unlikely places.
Bonus Materials
- High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
- Original lossless Korean DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 stereo soundtracks
- Optional English subtitles
- New audio commentary by writer and critic Simon Ward
- Isolated music and effects track
- Newly recorded video interview with Asian cinema expert Jasper Sharp
- The JSA Story and Making the Film, two archival featurettes on the film’s production
- About JSA, a series of archival introductions to the film by members of the cast
- Behind the scenes montage
- Opening ceremony footage
- Two music videos: Letter from a Private and Take the Power Back
- Theatrical trailer
- TV spot
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Kieran Fisher
Southland Tales
Release Date: January 26, 2021
In 2001, writer/director Richard Kelly achieved cult status with Donnie Darko, an assured debut feature exploring deep existential questions through the lens of 80s nostalgia. Five years later, he followed up with a more ambitious and even more beguiling sophomore effort, in which forces of totalitarianism and anarchism collide against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic, near-future world – the beguiling and baffling Southland Tales. Los Angeles, 2008. As the city stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental chaos, the fates of an eclectic set of characters – including an amnesia-stricken action star (Dwayne Johnson, the Fast & Furious series), an adult film star developing her own reality TV project (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Cruel Intentions) and a police officer whose identity has split in two (Seann William Scott, TV’s Lethal Weapon) – intertwine with each other and with the whole of humanity. A darkly comic futuristic epic that speaks as presciently to our turbulent times as it did to the American socio-political climate in 2006, Southland Tales receives a fresh – and timely – lease of life with this new, director-approved restoration.
Bonus Materials
- New 2K restoration by Arrow Films, approved by director Richard Kelly and director of photography Steven Poster
- High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentations of both versions of the film: the 145-minute theatrical cut and the 160-minute “Cannes cut”, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006
- Original lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 stereo soundtracks
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary on the theatrical cut by Richard Kelly
- It’s a Madcap World: The Making of an Unfinished Film, a new in-depth retrospective documentary on the film, featuring contributions by Richard Kelly and members of the original crew
- USIDent TV: Surveilling the Southland, an archival featurette on the making of the film, featuring interviews with the cast and crew
- This is the Way the World Ends, an archival animated short set in the Southland Tales universe
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jacey
- Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Peter Tonguette and Simon Ward
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
