Key highlights this NOVEMBER on the essential, alternative streaming service ARROW include the premiere of a quirky comedy gem from a French auteur, half a century of gritty film noir, a host of high-kicking action from the Shaw Brothers, a season of sensual horror from Jean Rollin, and much more...

In November ARROW are exclusively showing INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE, from idiosyncratic French writer-director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Deerskin). The film sees a husband and wife move into a suburban house of their dreams only to discover that a mysterious secret is hidden in the basement that may change their lives forever. The film stars Alain Chabat (The Science of Sleep, Mood Indigo), Léa Drucker (Custody, The Man of My Life), Benoît Magimel (The Piano Teacher, Thieves) and Anaïs Demoustier (Sweet Evil, Alice and the Mayor). Extremely funny and imaginative, surreal and profound, INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE is an unmissable addition to the prolific Dupieux’s marvellously offbeat oeuvre, and you can see it first on ARROW!

Also showing in November, is Volume 2 of SHAWSCOPE, drawing together many of the best films from the final years of the Shaw Brothers studio, proving that while the end was nigh, these merchants of martial arts mayhem weren’t going to go out without a fight! Among the classics included are kung fu master Lau Kar-leung’s sensational The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, My Young Auntie, starring Kara Hui, breathtakingly wild shoot-‘em-up Mercenaries from Hong Kong, and Kuei Chih-hung’s spectacularly unhinged black magic meltdown The Boxer’s Omen.

ARROW are delighted to present a selection of films from JEAN ROLLIN, a deeply misunderstood and widely misrepresented French director who acheived marginal cult status in the 1990s thanks to home video, and only now is really getting his due as a master of erotic, dreamlike horror offerings - including Fascination, Lips of Blood and The Night of the Hunted - that are uniquely his own and ripe for reappraisal.

And, seeing as it is NOIRVEMBER, ARROW are showcasing four consummate examples of the genre in DARK AND DEADLY: THE NOIR COLLECTION, with The Dark Mirror, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Olivia de Havilland, Secret Beyond the Door, directed by Fritz Lang, with Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave; Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil with John Garfield, and Joseph H. Lewis's ultra-stylish The Big Combo with Cornel Wilde and Richard Conte.

ALSO SHOWING: Charlotte Rampling in Swimming Pool, Daniel Craig in Enduring Love, Gallic cinema, thoroughly British cult classics and much more…

NOVEMBER RELEASE CALENDAR

New Titles – From November 1

Fascination
Lips of Blood
The Grapes of Death
The Night of the Hunted
The Escapees
Zombie Lake

New Titles – November 7

Incredible But True

New Titles – From November 11

The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides
Dark and Deadly: 50 Years of Film Noir
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

New Titles – From November 18

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Return to the 36th Chamber
Disciples of the 36th Chamber
Mad Monkey Kung Fu
Five Superfighters
Kid with the Golden Arm
Invincible Shaolin
Magnificent Ruffians
Ten Tigers of Kwangtung
My Young Auntie
Mercenaries from Hong Kong
The Boxer’s Omen
Martial Arts of Shaolin
The Bare-footed Kid

New Titles – From November 25

Enduring Love
Swimming Pool

New Seasons this November

From November 4: JEAN ROLLIN VOL. III

Deeply misunderstood and widely misrepresented, during his decades-long career as a film director (1958-2009), Rollin’s work received absolutely no recognition in his native country of France, and was completely unknown anywhere else. In the nineties, because of home video, Rollin attained a marginal cult status in niche English speaking genre circles. Otherwise he has remained completely obscure.

From November 7: EN FRANÇAIS

Headlined by Quentin Dipieux’s delightfully bonkers and très French, Incredible But True, En Français is a curated collection of the very best in French film, covering the whole gamut and history of Gallic cinema.

With a constant output of chic and stylish cinema since the Lumiere brothers birthed the format in the first place, French cinema has not only been a valuable part of the country’s culture, but admired by cineastes from all over the world for it’s sophistication and the talent and influence of the many auteurs who have elevated the artform and entertained not just their countrymen, but the world.

Stage musician Georges Lumiere was the first filmmaker to embrace and push the boundaries of film and his most famous film – as well as the first genre film – A Trip To the Moon is proudly presented here with multiple viewing options. Influential auteurs like Jean-Luc Godard, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol are also well represented, as well as filmmakers initially dismissed but whose work is now coming to be reappraised and embraced such as Jean Rollin.

The best in modern French genre and arthouse cinema is present too. From the anxiety-inducing works of brilliantly mad genius Gaspar Noe, to terrifying French horror from the New French Extremity.

Titles include: Incredible But True, Love, La Haine

November 11: DARK AND DEADLY: THE NOIR COLLECTION

The city was full of fascination and danger, like an exclusive curated collection of film noir on ARROW. I closed the creaking blinds in my run-down office, the slants of light picking out the all-too-many motes of dust drifting around lazily in the smoke from my cigarette. Hunching over my computer like a man in a high wind trying to light a match I typed in the address the broad had given me: arrow-player.com.

Something told me not to trust a syllable that she pouted out of her cherry-red mouth, but the look in her eyes and the swing in her hips convinced me otherwise. I was smacked in the kisser with the force of a brick from the third floor as it hit me: Dark & Deadly. This was my scene alright, as well as an exclusive Paul Joyce documentary —Dark and Deadly: 50 Years of Film Noir — there were noir highlights like The Big Combo and The Naked City.

The case, the city and the broad could wait…

These quintessential aspects of film noir are strikingly demonstrated by the four consummate examples of the genre presented in this collection.

In The Dark Mirror (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak (The Killers), a man is murdered and there's an obvious suspect, but she has an identical twin sister (both played by Olivia de Havilland, Gone with the Wind), and one of them has a cast-iron alibi. The perfect crime? A psychologist with a specialist interest in twin psychology delves into the heart of the mystery, at considerable risk to himself. In Secret Beyond the Door (1947), Fritz Lang (The Big Heat) adapts the Bluebeard legend with a dash of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Shortly after their marriage, Celia (Joan Bennett, Suspiria) begins to suspect her architect husband Mark (Michael Redgrave, Dead of Night) of having a secret past, and wonders about the reason behind multiple rooms in his self-designed home, one of which is kept permanently locked. In Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil (1948), an unscrupulous lawyer (John Garfield, The Postman Always Rings Twice) scents a personal fortune when he concocts a plan to merge New York City's numbers rackets into a single powerful and unbreakable operation, but reckons without his brother, who'd rather stay independent. And in Joseph H. Lewis's ultra-stylish The Big Combo (1955), Lieutenant Diamond (Cornel Wilde, The Naked Prey) is determined to bring down mob boss Mr Brown (Richard Conte, Thieves' Highway), even if it means jeopardising his own career. But the feeling is mutual and the unscrupulous gangster is more than willing to operate outside the law to get his man, leading to some wince-inducing set-pieces (some involving a pre-stardom Lee Van Cleef).

This collection showcases many of the genre's major names on both sides of the camera. In addition to the directing and acting talent there are cinematographers Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter) and John Alton (An American in Paris), composers Dimitri Tiomkin (High Noon) and Miklós Rósza (The Killers), and writers Nunnally Johnson (The Woman in the Window) and Philip Yordan (Johnny Guitar). It's little wonder that directors such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino were so struck by them.

Titles include: Paul Joyce's 'Dark and Deadly', The Dark Mirror, Secret Beyond the Door

REEL LIFE: BASED ON TRUTH AND LIES

An exclusive curated collection where “real” life becomes “reel” life, explore the line between fact and fiction that often gets fuzzy when creating a biopic or telling the story of actual events on film in Reel Life: Based on Truth and Lies.
Fronted by 2005’s The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides, Fay Efrosini Lellios’ film about the last of the proletariat poets, Reel Life also features films and documentaries based on or inspired by the shock rocker who claimed he shot Kurt Cobain; English, American and Australian serial killers; the nordic black metal band, Mayhem; a Canadian indie filmmaker, Picasso and even Yakuza crime bosses!

Titles include: The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides, The El Duce Tapes, Coup D'État


From November 18: SHAWSCOPE VOL.2

Picking up where Volume One left off, this sophomore collection of Hong Kong cinema classics draws together many of the best films from the final years of the Shaw Brothers studio, proving that while the end was nigh, these merchants of martial arts mayhem weren’t going to go out without a fight!

We begin with kung fu master Lau Kar-leung’s instant classic The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, in which his adoptive brother Gordon Liu achieved overnight stardom as the young man who unexpectedly finds spiritual enlightenment on the path to vengeance; Lau and Liu followed the original with two comically inventive sequels, Return to the 36th Chamber and Disciples of the 36th Chamber, both included here. Already established as a genius at blending dazzling action with physical comedy, Lau himself plays the lead role in the hilarious Mad Monkey Kung Fu, coupled here with Lo Mar’s underrated Five Superfighters. Next, we once again meet Chang Cheh’s basher boy band the Venom Mob in no less than four of their best-loved team-ups: Invincible Shaolin, The Kid with the Golden Arm, Magnificent Ruffians and culminating in the all-star Ten Tigers of Kwangtung, co-starring Ti Lung and Fu Sheng.

After Lau brings us perhaps his best high-kicking comedy with My Young Auntie, a playful star vehicle for his real-life muse Kara Hui, we see Shaw Brothers fully embracing Eighties excess in our strangest double feature yet: Wong Jing’s breathtakingly wild shoot-‘em-up Mercenaries from Hong Kong, and Kuei Chih-hung’s spectacularly unhinged black magic meltdown The Boxer’s Omen. Last but certainly not least, Lau Kar-leung directs the last major Shaw production, Martial Arts of Shaolin, filmed in mainland China with a hot new talent named Jet Li in the lead role; it is paired in this set with The Bare-Footed Kid, a reverent remake of a Chang Cheh classic with Johnnie To (Running Out of Time) in the director’s chair and Lau back on fight choreography duties, in arguably the ultimate filmed tribute to Shaws’ everlasting cinematic legacy.

Titles Include: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Return to the 36th Chamber, Disciples of the 36th Chamber

From November 25: AWFULLY BRITISH

Complicated us Brits. We’re two sides of the same pound coin. Speaking the Queen’s English on telly and pronouncing “bottle of water,” “bo'ohw'o'wo'er” at home; prizing our stiff upper lips, but also knowing when to put the kettle on for a cosy chat about it. ‘Awfully British’ isn’t just a collection of classic and Cult British films, it’s a butcher’s at what it means and feels like to be made in Britain and how all those dichotomies have resulted in cinema that can be splendid, saucy, scary, socially conscious, or all of the above.

In here you’ll discover everything from lurid gothic Hammer horror to gory black comedy, from the nation that was banning video nasties one decade and making terrifying chillers and full-on bloodbaths the next. Class is always inescapable in Blighty and ‘Awfully British’ features sharp stabs at social commentary, from posh public school attitudes to council estate kitchen sink drama, but always with at least a snatch of our singular sense of humour and that certain something that on the other side of the Channel they call je ne sais quoi, but over ‘ere is just ‘Awfully British’.

Titles include: Enduring Love, Swimming Pool, The Cottage

NOVEMBER TITLES - IN DEPTH

NOVEMBER 1: FASCINATION

A runaway criminal breaks into an eerie chateau, taking its two frightened chambermaids hostage. As night falls, a group of mysterious aristocratic women arrive and the criminal begins to realize the women are hiding a sinister secret.

LIPS OF BLOOD

Frederick sees a photograph of a ruined seaside castle, which triggers a strange childhood memory. He then goes on a strange quest to find the castle and the beautiful woman who lives there.

THE GRAPES OF DEATH

A young woman discovers that the pesticide being sprayed on vineyards is turning people into killer zombies.

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTED

A woman is taken to a mysterious clinic whose patients have a mental disorder in which their memories and identities are disintegrating as a result of a strange environmental accident.

THE ESCAPEES

On the run from an asylum for the insane, a feisty young girl and her forlorn female companion embark on a surreal journey with a group of traveling erotic dancers. Wandering from the fantastic to the farcical and back again, The Escapees contains all the magic and fairy-tale qualities of cult films like Fascination (1979) and Requiem for a Vampire (1971) and has everything one expects from a Rollin film, including two beautiful young women, startling scenes of death, burlesque shows in a junkyard and erotic lesbian encounters with Brigitte Lahaie!

ZOMBIE LAKE

In a small village, somewhere in France, German soldiers, killed and thrown into the lake by the Resistance during WWII, come back.

Nov 7: INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE

Quirky, deadpan humour, an absurdist eye for French social etiquette and a keen sense of the folly of existence are among the hallmarks of the oddball comedies of director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Deerskin), and Incredible But True is no different.

The film has been described as "a fun little trinket that unmistakably comes from Dupieux's far-out perspective" (Jessica Kiang, Variety) and "a film with something of Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze" (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian). Alain (Alain Chabat, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) and Marie (Léa Drucker, War of the Worlds) are a middle-aged bourgeois couple who move to their new house in a quiet suburb. A key feature of their new abode that the estate agent points out to them is a mysterious tunnel in the basement. Little do they realise that it will turn their lives upside down...

Incredible But True is an inventive and nimble tale that perfectly showcases the singular and eccentric vision that has made Dupieux the most exciting director working in France today.

Nov 11: THE LONG HAUL OF A.I. BEZZERIDES

Filled with humour and defining experiences in both his own life and in the lives of some of his closest friends, William Faulkner and Robert Aldrich, as well as on his late wife, screenwriter Silvia Richards, Mr. Bezzerides offers colourful reflections as to why he and his typewriter unabashedly need to keep creating honest characters, worlds, and stories. Through recently discovered boxes of photographs, film clips, the haunting music by Fugazi, interviews (including Jules Dassin, Mickey Spillane and Barry Gifford) and testaments to his progressive creativity from other writers, Fay Lellios' straight-ahead documentary gives us a start in discovering this 97-year-old proletariat storyteller, and the meaning of his favourite phrase by Carl Jung, "There can be no birth of consciousness without pain."

DARK AND DEADLY: 50 YEARS OF FILM NOIR

A documentary looking at the renaissance of the film noir genre,and talking to directors who are using it to reflect contemporary fears and fascinations.

PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the stench of 18th century Paris, develops a superior olfactory sense, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. However, his work takes a dark turn as he tries to preserve scents in the search for the ultimate perfume.

Nov 18: THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN

The anti-Ching patriots, under the guidance of Ho Kuang-han, have secretly set up their base in Canton, disguised as school masters. During a brutal Manchu attack, Lui manages to escape, and devotes himself to learning the martial arts in order to seek revenge.

RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER

The workers of a dye factory have their pay cut by 20 per cent when the factory owner brings in some Manchu thugs to try and increase production. Desperate to reclaim their full wages, the workers hire an actor to impersonate a priest and kung-fu expert from the temple of Shaolin. The factory owner proves the actor a fraud, and punishes all those involved. The young actor feels he has let the workers down, and promises to atone. He sets out for Shaolin, determined to be accepted as a kung-fu pupil at the elite temple.

DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER

Monk San Te tries to support and protect Shaolin and her Fang Shih-yu who purposely attacks corrupt Ching officials.

MAD MONKEY KUNG FU

A disgraced former Kung Fu expert makes a living as a merchant with the help of a hot headed friend. When the men are harassed by gangsters, the merchant decided to teach his friend monkey boxing so they can defend their business.

FIVE SUPERFIGHTERS

Three young martial arts students and their teacher are beaten up badly by a wandering man who proclaims himself "a corrector of bad kung-fu." Determined to avenge their teacher and regain their honour, the three students all go their separate ways to find kung-fu masters who will take them as students.

KID WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

Jin bei tong opens with a group of escort guards preparing to move a shipment of gold from the local government to an area stricken by famine... one of the very few Venom films where all six Venom actors are present within a single film.

INVINCIBLE SHAOLIN

Three North Shaolin teachers are called on by the Manchus to teach their soldiers and are urged to challenge the current South Shaolin teachers. They defeat the South Shaolin teachers and, that night, the head general kills the South Shaolin teachers and blames their death on the North Shaolin teachers. The South Shaolin master sends more of his pupils, who are killed accidentally by the North Shaolin teachers. He finally sends two more of his students to train with old masters and trains one student himself with the goal of finally defeating the North Shaolin experts.

MAGNIFICENT RUFFIANS

Venom regulars Philip Kwok, Chiang Sheng, and Sun Chien star as a gang of unemployed martial artists who spend their days stuffing their faces at local restaurants and letting the staff beat them up instead of paying the bill. Their fortunes appear to improve when the head of a local security agency hires them to take out the competition, who their new employer insists is up to no good. But the boys are being played for fools, and after an unfortunate misunderstanding, they unite with their former adversary to take out the true villain.

TEN TIGERS OF KWANGTUNG

Ming partisan Chu who is on the run from Manchu forces. Local merchant and kung fu enthusiast Li Chen-chau gives the fugitive shelter in his pawnshop and quietly recruits some of his fellow martial master associates to help protect the lad. When Li's professional rival rats him out, Manchu official Liang not only orchestrates his army but fools a couple other kung fu masters including Beggar Su into helping his cause. After a heated battle, Li manages to convince Su into joining his cause, thus forming the Ten Tigers.

MY YOUNG AUNTIE

Cheng, a beautiful martial arts ace, battles to keep her inheritance from the ruthless Yun Wei, but her efforts are sabotaged by Yu Tao, her wayward and irrepressible great-nephew. Following a frenzy of spectacular comic mishaps, the hapless duo are set up and imprisoned and the deeds to Cheng's estate are stolen. She is held hostage after a doomed attempt to reclaim the papers back from Yu Wei's place, and the stage is set for a savage fight to the death.

MERCENARIES FROM HONG KONG

Ti Lung plays a Vietnam vet who's now an 'honourable' mercenary-for-hire taking on an assignment tracking down an assassin who's fled to Cambodia after murdering an industrialist from Hong Kong. He recruits a team for the task which consists of who's who of the Shaw Brother's action stars (Lo Lieh, Johnny Wang Lung Wei, Wong Yue, Chan Wei Man and comedy relief Nat Chan). However once they arrived for the mission nothing is what it seems with the standard plot-twists and turns as we find out who's the traitor among the group.

THE BOXER’S OMEN

After suffering an injury in the ring, embattled boxer Zhen Wei enlists the aid of his brother, Zhen Xiong, to avenge him and find the key to an omen which may release their family from an ancient curse. Black wizards, Taoist monks, rampaging monsters, spooky apparitions, beastly crocodile skeletons, flying human heads, a sexy female zombie with long talons, and demonic bats lie in store for our hero.

MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN

In ancient China, Zhi Ming trains at the legendary Northern Shaolin temple to avenge the death of his father at the hands of a nefarious magistrate.

THE BARE-FOOTED KID

A poor barefoot young man from the country arrives in the city to start work with the friend of his dead father.

Nov 25: ENDURING LOVE

A picture-postcard afternoon in the countryside ends in tragedy as Joe and Claire witness a ballooning incident. Bound together by their experience, fellow witness Jed becomes obsessed with Joe, stalking him and becoming ever more threatening.

SWIMMING POOL

A British crime novelist travels to her publisher's upmarket summer house in Southern France to seek solitude in order to work on her next book. However, the unexpected arrival of the publisher's daughter induces complications and a subsequent crime.

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About ARROW
From Arrow Films, a recognised world-leader in curation and creation, ARROW is a premium platform giving you an unparalleled viewing experience across multiple devices, so you can explore the films and TV shows that the Arrow brand is famous for.

Specially curated by members of the ARROW team, ARROW will be home to premium film and TV entertainment, exclusive new premieres, cutting edge cinema, international classics and cult favourites - such as the works of Lars Von Trier, Brian De Palma, Dario Argento, David Cronenberg and Park Chan-wook - plus the very best in acclaimed TV series, including The Bridge and Italian crime series Gomorrah, and brand-new short films from both new and established filmmakers. In the coming months, ARROW will be adding Oscar-winning hits, European classics, Asian cinema masterworks, rediscovered Westerns, offbeat gems and much more, along with such festival favourites The Sacred Spirit and Dinner in America as part of ARROW’s international strategy to support and celebrate the medium of film.

ARROW will also be home to ARROW Stories - an ever-growing collection of interviews, trailers, documentaries and additional extras, newly created just for the service and from its extensive archives. The service will be updated regularly with fresh content, new curation focuses and never-before-seen content, all selected by the ARROW team as well as the filmmakers themselves. With a slickly designed and user-friendly interface ARROW is the new alternative place to go for the very best in On-Demand entertainment.