Flicker Alley will release The Art of the Benshi on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on November 24, 2026. The Art of the Benshi is a limited edition of 3,000 units with 4K restorations of Orochi (1925), A Page of Madness (1926) and Captain January (1924). Orochi, A Page of Madness and Captain January appear for the first time on 4K UHD and Blu-ray disc.
The benshi tradition in The Art of the Benshi
Benshi were the live “film orators” of Japanese cinema. A benshi stood beside the screen to narrate events as they unfolded and to speak for the characters.
Films in The Art of the Benshi 4K UHD and Blu-ray set
The Art of the Benshi includes 4 Japanese films and 5 films starring Baby Peggy. Orochi, A Page of Madness and Captain January appear on 4K UHD and on the first Blu-ray disc, which mirrors all 4K titles. The other 6 titles are on Blu-ray only.
Buntarō Futagawa directed Orochi (The Serpent), with Tsumasaburō Bandō as a lonely samurai. A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeiji) is Teinosuke Kinugasa’s avant-garde exploration of a mental institution. A Page of Madness was at one time believed lost.
Denjirō Ōkōchi plays the 17th century rōnin Horibe Yasubee Taketsune in Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba (Chikemuri Takadanobaba, 1928), directed by Daisuke Itō. The complete Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba is lost. 12 minutes of Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba survive thanks to Tokyo’s Toy Film Museum.
Kenji Mizoguchi directed The Water Magician (Taki no shiraito, 1931). The new digital restoration of The Water Magician comes in 2 versions, one at 24fps and one at 20fps. The 24fps version pairs with the benshi performances, which the benshi recorded before the 20fps restoration was complete. The 20fps version has a piano score by Stephen Horne and aims to replicate Mizoguchi’s original exhibition plans.
Baby Peggy films in The Art of the Benshi
Diana Serra Cary began acting as “Baby Peggy” in Century Studios shorts at age 2. Baby Peggy was especially popular in Japan. Baby Peggy stars in 5 films in The Art of the Benshi:
- Brownie’s Little Venus (1921)
- directed by Fred Fishback
- one of Baby Peggy’s earliest surviving Century Comedies shorts
- long thought lost
- the UCLA Film & Television Archive preserved a 35mm nitrate print found at the Cinémathèque Suisse
- Sweetie (1923)
- directed by Alfred J. Goulding
- pieced together from Filmarchiv Austria, Lobster Films (Paris) and Museum of Modern Art sources
- the UCLA Film & Television Archive preserved Sweetie with funding from historian David Stenn and Packard Humanities Institute
- Darling of New York (1923)
- Baby Peggy’s feature film debut, a Universal Pictures release directed by King Baggot
- presumed lost except for a surviving 14-minute fragment of the climactic final reel
- a private collector found the 14-minute fragment
- the UCLA Film & Television Archive preserved Darling of New York with funding from David Stenn and Packard Humanities Institute
- Captain January (1924)
- produced by Sol Lesser
- directed by Edward F. Cline
- Hobart Bosworth co-stars as lighthouse keeper “Daddy” Judkins
- Irene Rich co-stars
- later remade with Shirley Temple
- the version Tokyo Cinema Shōkai released in Japan in 1935, with Japanese intertitles and narration by benshi Murayama Kenji
- Our Pet (1924)
- directed by Herman C. Raymaker
- Baby Peggy faces off against a late-night intruder
- a nearly complete 9.5mm print surfaced at a Japanese auction in 2016
- benshi Kataoka Ichirō acquired the 9.5mm print
- scanned in 3K, cleaned and stabilized frame by frame
The Art of the Benshi 4K restorations
Jidaigeki Senmon Channel restored Orochi in 4K in 2022, with technical assistance from the NFAJ. The restoration of Orochi uses the 35mm nitrate original camera negative and surviving release prints.
The NFAJ restored A Page of Madness in 4K from an analog restoration of the original blue-tinted nitrate print. The Yanai Initiative prepared a 4K scan of Captain January in 2026.
Flicker Alley produced The Art of the Benshi with the Yanai Initiative. The Yanai Initiative is a collaborative project of UCLA and Waseda University in Tokyo.
Benshi performers in The Art of the Benshi
The Art of the Benshi has 23 audio presentations across 9 titles. Every film has multiple benshi performances and historically inspired musical performances. Flicker Alley lists 11 benshi with newly recorded performances and their titles:
- Bunazawa Ken’ichi: Sweetie
- Kataoka Ichirō: Orochi, A Page of Madness, Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba
- Murayama Kenji: Captain January
- Mutō Kenji: Brownie’s Little Venus
- Oda Takatora: Our Pet
- Ōmori Kumiko: The Water Magician, Captain January, Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba
- Sakamoto Raikō: The Water Magician
- Sawato Midori: Orochi, The Water Magician, Our Pet
- Yamashiro Hideyuki: Orochi, Darling of New York
- Yamauchi Nanako: A Page of Madness, Darling of New York
- Yamazaki Vanilla: Brownie’s Little Venus
The Art of the Benshi 4K UHD and Blu-ray release details
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Label | Flicker Alley, in collaboration with the Yanai Initiative |
| Format | 4K UHD and Blu-ray |
| Edition | Limited edition of 3,000 units |
| Packaging | Hard box with removable obi strip |
| Video | 4K restorations of Orochi, A Page of Madness and Captain January |
| Blu-ray authoring | David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion |
| Language | Japanese |
| Subtitles | English SDH |
| Region | All Region (A, B, C) |
| Runtime | 431 mins. |
| Release date | November 24, 2026 |
The Art of the Benshi special features
Flicker Alley lists these bonus materials:
- Music Only Presentations – When international editions of Japanese films were distributed to Western art-house audiences in the late 1920s, they were shown with translated intertitles only (no benshi) and typically with musical accompaniment by either a pianist or small orchestra. Some of the finest musicians working in silent film music scoring today, Neal Brand, Stephen Horne, Makia Matsumura, and Donald Sosin, offer music-only presentations as a counterpoint to the version featuring benshi, to give a sense how these films would have been exhibited outside of Japan
- Talking Benshi – A brief overview of the oral art form that dates back to the dawn of Japanese cinema
- An Appreciation – A video essay comparing Orochi and A Page of Madness, historian Aaron Gerow provides an overview of jidai-geki, and gendai-geki, Japan’s distinct storytelling eras, and explores their connection to some early French films
- An Interview with “Baby Peggy” Diana Serra Cary – From a never-before-released 2011 interview, Diana Serra Cary looks back on life as “Baby Peggy” and recalls the fiery production of The Darling of New York
- Deluxe 80-Page Book – A detailed guide to the history of benshi and to the artists and films that appear in the collection
- A Page of Madness Program – A reproduction of the original brochure distributed at the very first public screening of the film in 1926
- Limited edition of 3,000 units encased in a hard box with removable obi strip
- Blu-ray Authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion
- English SDH Subtitles
- All Region Encoding (A,B,C)
The Art of the Benshi arrives on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Flicker Alley on November 24, 2026.
