Hot diggity! If you've been paying close attention you know that I've been obsessing over a Japanese film called Nine Souls ever since I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival last year. I love this film. I adore it. I truly belive that this is one of the best films of this millenium. Sure, we're not very far into the millenium yet, but still ... it's a really good movie. Well, Phil at Artsmagic has just made me a very happy boy by confirming the rumors that I've been hearing for a while. In his words Artsmagic will be releasing Nine Souls on DVD in North America and the UK "early next year". I'm trying to pin him down on what exactly qualifies as 'early' and on what sort of features the disc will have, but if the stack of extras on their release of the same director's Blue Spring is any indication this one should be coming with all the bells and whistles attached.

But wait! It gets better! Artsmagic has also confirmed that they will be handling a US and UK release of Shinya Tsukamoto's Bullet Ballet! Tsukamoto is widely known as Japan's answer to David Lynch, which is a fair enough comparison, and he made a huge splash internationally with his debut short film Tetsuo The Iron Man. For my money Bullet Ballet - the story of a man descending into depression and self destructive behavior following his girlfriend's suicide shot in stunning high conrast black and white - is Tsukamoto's second best film behind only the staggering Snake of June. Get the picture? I like Tsukamoto a bit, too.

Rest assured that I'm nagging away trying to get release dates and technical specs and will post any information I manage to dig up. In the meantime you can read my film fest review of Nine Souls here and Jason Morehead's here.