Nostalgia Kinky

Radiance has released the classic Japanese classic Ten Women in Black on Blu-ray. This new edition of Kon Ichikawa’s evocativie film contains a beuatiful new 4K restoration of the film, along with a feature-length documentary about the director and his screenwriter/wife Natto Wada.
Order this much-discussed film directly from Radiance or Stateside from MVD.

Known for masterpieces like The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fire on the Plain (1959), Kon Ichikawa has long been established as one of the most interesting and great Japanese filmmakers. Throughout a career that literally stretched across eight decades, Ichikawa received much acclaim, many awards and no small amount of adoration from the critical community.

Despite Ichikawa’s widespread acclaim, the bulk of his filmography remains out of sight from English-language audiences. Long considered one of his most important films, Ten Women in Black is not as well known to audiences outside of Asia compared to the two classics I mentioned at the outset or even his An Actor’s Revenge (1963), making this new Radiance edition an especially welcome release.

Along with being Ichikawa’s wife and creative partner, Natto Wada was one hell of a great screenwriter. The voice behind all of the Ichikawa classics I have already discussed, she also wrote screenplays for other filmmakers, like Yasuzō Masumura, but she was best known for her many screenplays for her husband. Ten Women in Black’s screenplay is a highly literate and hyper intelligent, containing as many layers as one is willing to peel back. It is a also dense and difficult screenplay at the times, making Ten Women in Black not the easiest film to watch.

Eiji Funakoshi plays a cocky television producer with a wife and nine mistresses. Ten Women in Black follows this group of women as they plan on murdering this cheating-obsessed man. Wada’s screenplay feels decades ahead of its time and is strikingly feminist, at least to my eyes. Critic Yuka Kimbara points out in Radiance’s excellent included booklet the comradery that forms between this group of ten as the film progresses. This underlying sense of female unification and strength that is felt throughout Ten Women in Black is my favorite thing about the film.
Well, my second favorite thing about the film.

The aspect of Ten Women in Black that most dazzled me is the jaw-dropping black-and-white photography by Setsuo Kobayashi. Holy hell, Ten Women in Black is a masterfully photographed work, featuring some of the deepest and most satisfying black levels I have seen in some time. From literally the first moment on, it is an absolute pleasure just looking at Ten Women in Black. There is one balcony shot overlooking the lit city that I’ll never get over. This film is a stunning viewing experience and it looks fantastic on this new Radiance Blu-ray. It is a great sounding film too, with Yasushi Akutagawa’s score providing such a pleasing and sometime surprising part of the film.

I have to admit that the film’s technical qualities finally became my chief interest as it went along, so much so that I kind of lost interest in much else about the film. The all-star ensemble cast is great but there is a slight vagueness over the entire film so any ability I had to connect with anyone vanished. As much as admired pretty much everything about the film, Ten Women in Black kept me at a distance emotionally. Perhaps that’s the point of a film partially focused on the superficiality of modern corporate media, but the lack of connection I felt hampered the film for me.

Regardless, Ten Women in Black is a fine, at times incredible, film. It is easy to see why it continues to come back into view and why it has several adaptations. This limited edition Radiance Blu-ray gives the film a fine home. The added bonus of Yasuharu Konishi from Pizzicato Five being interviewed about his love for the film and helping keeping it in the public eye is great, as is the booklet, The big selling point is Shunji Iwai’s abstract and fascinating 80 minute documentary The Kon Ichikawa Story.
This is another great release of an underseen classic from Radiance.

-Jeremy Richey, August 2026-