2 years after her break-through, Oscar-nominated performance in “Babel” and a few months before her next Hollywood flick, “The Brothers Bloom” is released, Rinko Kikuchi is in talks to star in Map of the Sounds of Tokyo, directed by Isabel Coixet. The film will be produced by the Spanish company Mediapro but is set in Japan. The story involves a fish market employee (Kikuchi) who doubles as a contract killer. The Spanish-born Coixet has formerly directed various critically-acclaimed dramas like “Elegy” starring Penelope Cruz and “My Life Without Me” starring Sarah Polley.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Check out “The Brothers Bloom” trailer

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From Bloody Disgusting comes word that the Dimension Films remake of Ataru Oikawa’s Tomie now has its writers in place: Phil Wen, Vince Di Meglio, and Tim Rasmussen. These names pretty much mean nothing to me, and after perusing their respective filmographies at IMDb they mean even less.

Tomie is based on a Junji Ito manga series about an evil girl who embodies lust and jealousy and repeatedly returns from death to cause trouble for a new set of young people who invariably end up killing her in various brutal ways. The original movie adaptation spawned 7 sequels, the latest being Tomohiro Kubo’s Tomie vs Tomie in 2007. The repetitiveness of the series combined with sheer number of sequels has probably given it a bad name over the years—possibly making it a poster child for the perceived decline of J-horror. A few of them were actually kind of creepy and atmospheric though, including the first. Unfortunately the things that make the original version creepy and atmospheric—such as methodical pacing and a strange-but-effective vocoder soundtrack—are exactly the sort of things that Hollywood remakes typically tend to strip out for the sake of mass consumption. Personally I wouldn’t bank on this one being any exception, but it never hurts to keep an open mind.

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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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Earlier today renowned Japanese photographer Kazumi Kurigami held a press conference at Cinema Jack & Betty movie theater to announce production of his directorial debut entitled Gelatin Silver, Love. Also in attendance were the film’s stars, Masatoshi Nagase, Rie Miyazawa, and Koji Yakusho. “Gelatin silver” is a reference to the process of developing black and white photographs. In the film, Rie Miyazawa wears various wigs, one of which she showed off at the press conference.

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