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Funimation Offers Live-Action Smuggler Film on DVD

FUNimation Entertainment and Giant Ape Media will release Katsuhito Ishii's live-action Smuggler film on DVD on April 1. The film adaptation of Shohei Manabe's manga was previously licensed by Cinema Asia Releasing in 2011, but the company's website is no longer active. Funimation is streaming a trailer for the film on its website.

Funimation describes the story:

Kinuta's (Satoshi Tsumabuki) life is at a crossroads. His acting career hit the skids, and his gambling addiction just landed him in major debt to the mob. Bad guys with itchy trigger fingers want to put the kid six feet under until a mistress of the underworld scores him a job smuggling corpses. But death is nasty business, and Kinuta soon crosses paths with Vertebrae (Masanobu Andō) and Viscera (Ryushin Tei), an insanely deadly duo of ninja assassins. These lethal psychopaths kill everyone in sight, drawing the vengeful wrath of a demented Mafioso. What ensues is cinematic sequence almost too extreme for American audiences. Kinuta accidentally springs Vertebrae from a harrowing death march, landing himself in the unenviable position of having to impersonate a psycho killer – or end up dead. This heinous game of cat and mouse becomes a splatterfest of guts and gore as a diaper-clad madman puts Kinuta's will to live to the ultimate test!

Tokyopop published the original Smuggler manga in America in 2006. The film premiered in Japan in 2012.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip