First Crows Zero II teaser featuring old footage from the first Crows Zero. The film is due out in 2009.

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A press conference was held yesterday at Space FS Shiodome to announce completion of Go Ohara’s directorial debut, Geisha vs Ninjas. Ohara joined the film’s stars, Minami Tsukui and Masaki Nomura to offer greetings from the stage before a preview screening. Also in attendance were 3 guys in ninja costumes for the sake of corny photo ops.

In the film Tsukui, who was chosen from over 2,000 young actresses, plays a geisha named Kotono who faces off against the ninjas who killed her father. She initially found the the intense fight scenes to be difficult because she had never worn a geisha wig before, but eventually she got used to it. Co-star Nomura praised the acrobatic skill and strength Tsukui showed during their scenes.

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Straight from the “I’m not exactly sure how to feel about this” department comes word that Ryuhei Kitamura recently made an announcement at Fantasia that he will be remaking his brainless-but-fun zombie action flick Versus in the US. So far there’s not much word on the potential production other than he’s finalizing the script and is quoted as saying, “The US Versus will be insane!”

The original Versus came out in 2000 and quickly became a cult hit with western fans of Asian extreme cinema. This overseas success was not lost on Kitamura, and if you’ve listened to his DVD commentary for the film you’d notice how fascinated he was by the reaction of US audiences to his work compared to Japanese audiences. Well, times have changed—we have short memories around here—and it will be interesting to see how this one develops over time. I’m sure the viability of the project will at least partially hinge on the success of his Hollywood debut, Midnight Meat Train (trailers at Twitch). Certainly something to keep tabs on in the future though, and we will.

via Quiet Earth

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Any sort of info on Takashi Miike‘s Crows Zero II has been slow to trickle out because it’s still so early in the production process, but a casting call was recently posted which gives away at least one tiny aspect of the plot. The production is looking for a large number of 18-35 year-old skinhead extras to play students of Housen Gakuen; one of the rival schools featured in Hiroshi Takahashi‘s Crows manga spinoff, “Worst”. Filming starts in August and will wrap in October. They’re also looking for “big-boned” tough-looking dudes to play Serizawa’s army, GPS (Genji’s Perfect Succession), and spectators during the fight scenes. Hey this movie sounds kinda violent…

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Talk about coming out of nowhere. Today we present you with Gachi-ban, a movie that seems to have appeared out of thin air and yet already has a trailer and is primed for a limited 1-week showing starting July 19 at Cinemart Roppongi. Does this lack of prior PR mean it sucks? Quite possibly, but judging from the trailer it will at least give the kids some over-the-top delinquent schoolboy ass-kicking to tide them over until Crows Zero 2 comes out next year.

Created by long-time pinku director Hideo Jojo and co-written by Masao Iketani (Yakuza’s Kindergarten), the film is pretty much a direct spoof that makes no effort to hide that fact that it’s trying to capitalize on the success of Takashi Miike‘s Crows Zero with a quickly-produced “high-tension yankee movie”. The difference, however, is that they’re replacing Miike with Jyoujyou and Shun Oguri with Shunsuke Kubozuka (Saikano, Yo-Yo Girl Cop). Something tells me they won’t be hitting the 2.4 billion yen mark that “Crows” reached.

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