Press Release
The Samurai’s Last Stand

Master filmmaker Yoji Yamada’s 78th film, The Hidden Blade, available in Stores August 8th from Tartan Video

“An old-fashioned Hollywood western…loyalty, honor and virtue carry the day.”
Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“Yamada has performed a minor miracle…He has managed a portrait of goodness and virtue that is neither cynical nor contrived.”
Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

“An old-fashioned samurai drama extremely reminiscent of its predecessor, yet surprisingly more elegant and potent.”
Ain’t It Cool News

“#1 movie of the year”
Edward Douglas, ComingSoon

LOS ANGELES — Feb. 1, 2006 — For Immediate Release — In his 44th year of filmmaking, one of Japan’s master storytellers takes us into the thrilling world of the samurai with a mesmerizing tale of honor, loyalty and love in mid-19th-century Japan.Yoji Yamada’s The Hidden Blade carves up DVD shelf space August 8th in stores across the nation from Tartan Video.

Munezo Katagiri (Masatoshi Nagase), an honest and low ranking samurai is trapped in a state of personal and professional imbalance. Secretly in love with his family’s maid, Kie (Takako Tabata), Munezo begins an uneasy courtship with her, knowing that a relationship is impossible.

Raised to respect traditions from the past and the demanding moral code of the samurai, circumstances have now forced Munezo to look to the future. Required to master western military strategies, particularly the art of artillery, Munezo is ordered to find and kill Yaichiro, a former friend, samurai, and brilliant swordsman.

Munezo knows that he cannot beat Yaichiro with fire power alone, so he enlists the help of his old teacher, Kansai Toda, a master swordsman who entrusts Munezo with the secret and power of The Hidden Blade.

Born in 1931, Director Yoji Yamada is well-known for his long-running series of movies, including the Tora-san films, which ran 48 in total.  He has won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Picture four times and his previous film, Twilight Samurai, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2003 Academy Awards©.

Japanese, with English and Spanish subtitles, The Hidden Blade is presented in anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and DTS Surround Sound 5.1. Special DVD features are yet to be determined but will include the original theatrical trailer and trailers of Tartan Video’s upcoming releases.

Hamish McAlpine, the founder and owner of Tartan Films, who are celebrating twenty one years of distributing films in the UK, launched Tartan USA in 2004 with an eclectic and controversial slate of films from established auteurs and up-and-coming filmmakers.  Recent Tartan film releases include 2004 Cannes Grand Jury Prize Winner OLDBOY, the sincerely creepy A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, Michael Winterbottom’s 9 SONGS and Takashi Shimizu’s MAREBITO. Upcoming releases include the critically-acclaimed Romanian Oscar entry THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU and the final film in Park Chanwook’s “ Vengeance Trilogy”. LADY VENGEANCE. For more information, visit www.TartanVideoUSA.com