Posted by kevin at 9:54am EDT on Thursday, June 26, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Horror, Future releases
Thanks to Quiet Earth and The Gomorrahizer for the heads up on this one. Tak Sakaguchi‘s second directorial effort, Samurai Zombie (Yoroi) will premiere at this year’s upcoming Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan). Here’s the official description from the festival’s website:
A family is kidnapped by a couple who have guns. Wandering lost, they get together in a place where there are zombies in samurai armor. Encountering zombies and police, reunited family struggle and get to confront a tragic secret. A fun action-horror on the low budget B-movie.
Posted by kevin at 11:13am EDT on Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Future releases
Takahisa Zeze‘s upcoming basketball flick Flying Rabbits seems to have blown its news wad a little earlier than expected given its September 13 release date, so I figured it’s as good a time as any to catch everyone up on what we know so far.
The story revolves around a girl named Yukari (Satomi Ishihara) who has always aspired to become a CA (cabin attendant). She gets hired by Japan Airlines, but due to an unexpected slip-up she’s also recruited to the company’s basketball team, “JAL Rabbits”. Splitting time between her training as an attendant and playing basketball, Yukari keeps messing up in both areas. She stinks at basketball and keeps getting reprimanded by her mean old CA trainer. Not used to dealing with hardships like this, she wants to quit and go home—but eventually finds the strength to keep trying. Seems like a pretty pedestrian inspirational dramedy filled with pretty girls. I’m in.
Posted by kevin at 8:39pm EDT on Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Filed under: Fantasy, Future releases
It looks like Takashi Miike will be pulling out all the stops in his live-action take on the classic 70s cartoon Yatterman. Here’s the full-scale version of Yatter-Bark, the huge rescue robot dog which will be featured prominently in the movie. Yatter-Bark measures 5.5 meters and took 3 months to build at an expense of over 30 million yen (currently about $280,000 USD). The photo was taken on the Takada toy shop set, located in an underground garage.
Sho Sakurai, the actor who plays Yatter-Bark’s creator, Gan, was surprised to see it in person for the first time, thinking it would just be added later in CGI. He drew inspiration from being around it during scenes and claims its massive scale and force created a certain tension on the set. Producer Yoshinori Chiba says that although a lot of CGI is needed for the film, great care was taken to maintain a specific feel between the wardrobe and set design, and being in the presence of a real-life Yatter-Bark brought adults back to their childhoods. The live-action shooting for Yatterman wrapped up in the beginning of June and the next few months will be spent working on CGI and editing, with release tentatively scheduled for March 2009. [source]
Posted by kevin at 3:09pm EDT on Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Filed under: Action, Thriller, Future releases, New trailers
When I wrote up this wiki article on Takanori Tsujimoto’s Hard Revenge, Milly last month it seemed odd that it had a run-time of only 44 minutes. Well, it all makes sense now, because it’s actually being packaged with Isao Kaneko’s The Masked Girl as part of the Neo Action double bill premiering at Q-AX on Saturday August 9, 2008. It’s pretty good timing, considering The Machine Girl will be going public in Japan on the previous Saturday and they might be able to piggyback on whatever new found interest in senseless violence that generates.
Posted by kevin at 9:43pm EDT on Monday, June 23, 2008
Filed under: Drama, Future releases, New trailers
If you read my article on Shiori to Shimiko no Kaiki Jikenbo, then you know I really think highly of actress Nao Minamisawa and I’m totally convinced she’s going to be a big deal. So needless to say I was excited when the news broke earlier today that she’s been cast in the lead role of Akai Ito, an upcoming movie based on a popular mobile phone novel. As Tokyograph reported back in April, the story will be split between a Fuji TV television drama and a Shochiku-produced movie with both being directed by Fuji TV’s Shosuke Murakami and featuring the same cast.
Minamisawa will play the lead role of Mei. She says she’s nervous about the prospect of starring in a movie, but really excited at the same time and she’ll give it her all with reckless abandon. Mei’s love interest Atsushi will be played by Junpei Mizobata (Dive!!). Also added to the cast were relative newcomers Ryo Kimura, Rei Okamoto, Tomo Yanagishita, Anna Oshibashi, and Nanami Sakuraba. The film’s theme song will be handled by the band HY, who take their name from the initials of their hometown Higashi Yakena.
Coinciding with cast announcements, the official website for the film posted some behind-the-scenes footage of Minamisawa which you can check out here. I posted the teaser below the break, but since it was made before they announced the cast publicly you can imagine how generic it is.
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