A Broken Man, a Loaded Gun, a Doomed City

Read Time:5 Minute, 23 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The Beast to Die (LE) (Yajû shisubeshi)
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Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Year Released: 1980, Radiance Films Blu-ray 2025
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director(s): Tôru Murakawa
Writer(s): Haruhiko Ôyabu, Shoichi Maruyama
Cast: Yūsaku Matsuda, Asami Kobayashi, Hideo Murota, Rikiya Yasuoka, Yoshirō Aoki, Kai Ato, Eimei Esumi, Hirokazu Inoue, Koichi Iwaki, Shigeru Izumiya, Toby Kadoguchi, Haruki Kadokawa
Where to Watch: available July 22, 2025, pre-order your copy here: www.radiancefilms.co.uk, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: There's a cold, detached rage simmering beneath the surface of THE BEAST TO DIE, a film that doesn't ask for sympathy but dares you to sit with discomfort. With its gritty 80s Tokyo setting, hypnotic anarchy, and a lead performance that lingers with you, this Japanese thriller has been restored for the first time in HD by Radiance Films—and the result is a time capsule of despair that feels alarmingly contemporary.

Yūsaku Matsuda plays Kunihiko Date, a haunted war photographer whose time in combat zones across Asia has left him emotionally and morally fractured. Now back in Tokyo, the only thing keeping him tethered to the world is a camera—and eventually, not even that works for him. He begins plotting violent robberies, escalating toward a bank heist that’s less about money and more about the complete erasure of meaning. Along the way, he recruits Tetsuo Sanada (played by a volatile Takeshi Kaga), an outcast with just as little to lose.

What elevates THE BEAST TO DIE above a standard crime thriller is its commitment to psychological decay. This isn't just a man unraveling—it's an indictment of the way societies discard those they've broken. Matsuda's performance is legendary for a reason. Often called the “Japanese James Dean,” Matsuda strips away the charisma that defined his earlier work, instead delivering a performance built on fatigue and menace. His transformation reflects a deep, physical commitment to the character’s inner torment.

Director Tôru Murakawa helms this descent into madness with precision. He refuses to glamorize the violence or stylize the city into noir excess. Instead, Tokyo here feels sterile and suffocating, with scenes that drift between naturalism and hallucinatory abstraction. Archival cityscapes are juxtaposed with dreamlike visuals and sudden bursts of brutality, evoking a worldview warped by PTSD and detachment.

Screenwriters Haruhiko Ôyabu and Shoichi Maruyama, working from Maruyama’s novel, deliver dialogue that’s clipped, bitter, and sparse, more about mood than exposition. There's a poetic rage buried in the script—lines that seem simple at first but cut deeper the longer they sit. This isn’t a film that spells things out for you, and that refusal to comfort is exactly what makes it work.

The restoration by Kadokawa and Radiance Films is immaculate. For a film long relegated to VHS-quality obscurity, seeing it with a clean mono audio track and HD is revelatory. The added interviews and critical essays—including commentary from novelist and screenwriter Jordan Harper—don’t just contextualize the work; they elevate its legacy. This is the kind of home video release that feels like a reclamation.

As a cinematic experience, THE BEAST TO DIE is not always pleasant, but it’s impossible to ignore. THE BEAST TO DIE adds a unique Japanese context—one informed by the scars of postwar militarism and the alienation of rapid urban expansion. The trauma here is both personal and collective, etched into every violent decision.

If there’s any drawback to the film, it lies in its emotional distance. While Matsuda's performance is undeniably magnetic, the narrative's coldness can make it difficult to form a lasting connection to any character. Even Sanada feels more like a reflection of Date’s fractured psyche than a person in his own right. But perhaps that’s the point—this is a world where no one exists anymore, not in a meaningful way.

Still, for those who appreciate slow-burn thrillers built on character implosion rather than just action, THE BEAST TO DIE is a gem. It's stylish without being flashy, violent without being indulgent, and deeply political without being preachy. The film may have arrived in 1980, but its themes—disposability, alienation, and moral numbness—feel just as urgent now.

This is a film that doesn’t offer resolution—it drags you through its darkest impulses and lets you sit with the silence afterward. THE BEAST TO DIE is not for everyone, but for those willing to follow its nihilistic path, there’s a brutal honesty waiting at the end.

Bonus Materials:
4K Restoration by Kadokawa
Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
Interview with Toru Murakawa (2025)
Interview with Shoichi Maruyama (2025)
Critical appreciation from novelist and screenwriter Jordan Harper (2025)
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Tatsuya Masuto
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip, leaving the packaging free of certificates and markings

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[photo courtesy of RADIANCE FILMS, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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