Amasszon Dept.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GiG is getting a priced-down reissue in September thanks to Bandai. No word on domestic issues of the Blu-ray versions of the series (or even the remix of the movie, which I've been anticipating for a while now), but $40 for the whole of 2nd GiG on DVD is not a bad deal. A re-release of the entire set of Ergo Proxy is also on the slate. If you find the soundtrack CDs for this series, pick them up immediately. They are way out of print, probably never to return again, and are musically outstanding.

Interesting four-fer on Blu-ray, for the price of roughly any two items in the pack: Drunken Master, Iron Monkey, Zatōichi, Hero. No word if Hero is the edited-down version or if Drunken Master has the original (censored / offensive) ending. I'd bet money they're the international versions, given the lousy track record we've had for this sort of thing in the past.

Rob Zombie's long-in-limbo Haunted World of El Superbeasto finally gets a release. Sadly, the clips available make it look pretty terrible, like Ralph Bakshi as done by a cut-rate Korean production house.

Another deserving BD reissue of a cult movie: Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. A friend of mine introduced me to it not long after it came out on video; the emotional impact it had on him was all the greater since the girl he was dating at the time looked exactly like Henry's girlfriend in the film.

Discotek Media has a bunch of stuff on the slate for the rest of the year: a reissue of the interesting-but-failed Uzumaki (which I reviewed), Sex and Zen (which Ebert liked!), Storm Riders, adapted from the comic of the same name, and a few others not solicited yet. A post over at Discotek's site mentions that some of these titles have needed a fair amount of restoration to be watchable.

The animated version of Blade of the Immortal also has a solicitation. What I have seen of it was impressive but from what others tell me, it cuts short before it really goes anyway. I'll wait for the official release to really sink my teeth into it.

Finally: Danish animated envelope-pusher Princess (IMDB) also gets a domestic release. This one seems far more in the vein of "picking up where Ralph Bakshi left off" than the Rob Zombie production.