The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has announced its 55th Second Focus Program, spotlighting Japan’s V-Cinema, the direct-to-video movement that exploded in the late 1980s and deeply shaped Japan’s contemporary film culture.
This section, curated by Tom Metz, will run from January 29th to February 8th as part of the 2026 edition of the festival.
Originating from Toei’s Crime Hunter: Bullets of Fury (1989), V-Cinema responded to Japan’s booming home video market by producing films that bypassed theaters entirely. The low-budget, high-speed production model gave directors unprecedented creative freedom and produced a generation of filmmakers who would later define modern Japanese cinema, including Takashi Miike, Hideo Nakata, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Shinji Aoyama.
IFFR’s V-Cinema Focus will introduce a variety of Toei titles, including the “Crime Hunter” trilogy, “Crime Hunter: Bullet of Fury,” “Crime Hunter 2: Bullet of Betrayal,” and “Crime Hunter 3: Killing Bullet.” In addition, director Nakata’s feature debut “Female Teacher: Forbidden Sex”, the psycho-noir “Betrayal of Tomorrow”, and the cult action thriller “XX Beautiful Weapon” will also be included in the lineup.
The program goes beyond Toei and focuses on the anarchic spirit and genre experimentation that characterized the movement. Among the selections are the ghost anthology Scary Stories: The Second Night, the spooky found footage investigation Ghost Visions: The Evil Eye, and Miike’s ultra-violent Fudo: The New Generation. Other highlights include the surreal gangster fable “Tough: Part I,” Kurosawa’s deadpan yakuza comedy “Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself!! VI: The Hero,” Aoyama’s quintessential action drama “Weapons of the Heart,” and “The Emperor of Minami,” the story of a loan shark who helps small business owners.
“V-Cinema has given filmmakers a space to take risks, move quickly and work with a freedom rarely possible in the traditional studio system,” said IFFR Festival Director Vanja Karjelčić. “What emerged was a wild, original film that borrowed from everything from anarchic yakuza stories and psychological horror experiments to surreal hybrids that still feel exciting today.”
IFFR’s full 2026 program will be announced on December 16th.
