Preview screening and press conference held for Sabu’s ‘The Crab Cannery Ship’

On Friday, April 10th, a press conference and preview screening was held for Sabu’s recently-completed film, The Crab Cannery Ship (Kanikosen). Sabu was on stage for interviews along with stars Ryuhei Matsuda, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Kengo Kora, Hirofumi Arai, Tokio Emoto, and comedy duo TKO (Takehiro Kimoto and Takayuki Kinoshita).

Takiji Kobayashi’s original 1929 novel about a workers revolt on a crap cannery ship has been surging in popularity for several years now because its proletarian theme fits right in with a recent Marxist fascination amongst young Japanese workers that feel exploited by their employers.

Never one to downplay his own work, Sabu called his loyal-but-updated adaptation a “masterpiece” and pointed out that even as the film’s director he can still be impressed, emotionally moved, and get fired up from watching it.

The film is set on a crab cannery ship where supervisor Asakawa (Nishijima) mistreats his workers and pushes them to the limit of human endurance. Nishijima expressed the hope that his performance will get him more nasty roles in the future. Matsuda, who plays the leader of the revolt, pointed out that Nishijima had a difficult role because modern stories don’t usually have such clearly-defined villains. Basically, he had to deliver his lines in a way that modern audiences would buy into.

This was the first film for comedy duo TKO. Kinoshita remarked on how tough the movie world was before admitting that getting smacked around by Nishijima made him think he might make a good masochist.

Speaking of masochists, Kengo Kora had to touch so many crabs during filming he eventually had to fess up to a shellfish allergy.

“The Crab Cannery Ship” is set to be released this summer at Cinema Rise and Theatre Shinjuku with a national road show to follow.

Source: Pia

Here’s the teaser if you haven’t seen it yet:

Official website

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