“Handgun” (ハンドガン), Original Release Japanese Movie Poster 1986 (film 1983), Tony Garnett / Karen Young, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) S167
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster produced for the first Japanese cinema release of Tony Garnett’s Handgun (ハンドガン), also known in North America as Deep in the Heart, starring Karen Young and Clayton Day. The film was first released internationally in 1983 and opened theatrically in Japan on 11 February 1986, distributed domestically by Shochiku-Fuji (松竹富士). Japanese film records identify Garnett as producer, director and screenwriter, with cinematography by Charles Stewart and music by Mike Post.
Set in Dallas, Texas, the film follows Kathleen Sullivan, a young high-school teacher whose life is violently transformed after she is sexually assaulted at gunpoint by lawyer and firearms enthusiast Larry Keeler. Frustrated by the limitations of the legal system, Kathleen begins learning to use a handgun herself. Although structured around the conventions of the rape-revenge thriller, Garnett’s film is notably concerned with American gun culture, sexual violence, masculinity and the psychological consequences of vengeance, rather than presenting revenge simply as catharsis. Karen Young made her feature-film debut in the lead role.
Poster design
A superbly graphic and unusually minimalist Japanese first-release design. Against an almost completely black field, the upper half is dominated by a stark white silhouette of a woman extending a revolver across the sheet. The image reduces the film’s central transformation into a single striking symbol: victim becoming armed hunter.
The upper-right title HAND GUN is rendered in huge white capitals, with selected letters picked out in red, accompanied by the bright cyan Japanese ハンドガン. At the bottom, a vivid red triangular field isolates a photographic image of the distressed Karen Young, creating a powerful contrast between vulnerability and the cool, controlled gun-wielding figure above.
Running vertically down the right side is the key Japanese campaign line:
「その夜が、女教師を女豹（ハンター）に変えた。」
— approximately “That night turned the schoolteacher into a hunter.”
The poster’s restricted palette of black, white, red and cyan, combined with its severe use of negative space, gives it an exceptionally strong early-to-mid-1980s graphic quality and makes it far more sophisticated than conventional exploitation artwork.
It is over 40 years old!
Condition
Excellent+. An exceptionally well-preserved example with deep, clean blacks, vivid red and cyan printing, and excellent overall surface presentation. The verso remains remarkably clean, with only extremely minor age / storage character. There are no significant condition issues affecting the central artwork or typography.
Please review the front and reverse photographs carefully—they show the exact poster for sale.
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
