Preview screening held for Fumihiko Sori’s ‘Ichi’, new trailer released

Director Fumihiko Sori joined Ichi stars Haruka Ayase and Takao Osawa yesterday for a preview screening of the film and greetings from the stage. As is typical for these press events nothing particularly informative came out of it, but a lot of praise was poured on Ayase for being able to handle all her own fight scenes without the benefit of a stand-in and a relatively short amount of time to train. Sori was particularly impressed by her natural reflexes and fighting spirit.

“Ichi” offers a fresh take on the Zatoichi franchise. The film stars Haruka Ayase as the blind swords(wo)man. Prior to this project the Zatoichi character had only been played by two men; Shintaro Katsu from 1962-1989 in both a TV series and 26 movies, then by Takeshi Kitano in his 2003 film, Zatoichi. In Sori’s version Ichi is not a blind masseuse (for obvious reasons), but a blind singer and shamisen player. A samurai named Touma (Osawa) intervenes when a group of men appear to be threatening Ichi in a mountain town. However, she ends up saving him when she pulls a hidden sword from her walking cane and dispatches her attackers without breaking a sweat. Touma and Ichi soon get caught in the middle a war between two factions vying for control of the town and must eventually face off against the minions of a powerful warlord (Shido Nakamura).

Teaser:

Trailer:

“Ichi” opens in Japan on October 25, 2008.

Official website
Maichichi’s take on the event + lots of pretty pictures

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Tags: akira emoto, daishiro hano, eiko kotake, eri watanabe, fumihiko sori, go riju, haruka ayase, hiroki matsukata, horiken, kazuma chiba, kumiko tsuchiya, masaaki nagae, masaki katou, mayumi sada, megumi yokoyama, mitsuki koga, riki takeuchi, ryosuke shima, shido nakamura, shiro namiki, shoichiro masumoto, takao osawa, tetta sugimoto, toshiki masuda, usagi kono, wakako matsuzaka, yoshihiro ishizuka, yosuke kubozuka, yuko endo, zatoichi