Father Geek here with pigmon's regular weekly report from Japan...
Here is this week's report...
NEWS
*It is busy week for Japan Premiere movies. Salma Hayek shows up for "Frida"
premire on the 14th.
Ang Lee appears at "The Hulk" Japanese Premiere in front of a 6000 member audience on the
15th. Finally Jet Lee, Ziyi Zhang and director Yimor Zhang are invited to the Japanese
Premiere of "Ying Xiong(Hero)".
I also attend all these press conferences, but there are nothing new to report from them.
*At the "Cutie Honey" press conference.
Director Hideaki Anno introduces Eriko Sato who plays Cutie Honey. Annnnd tells us that when she transforms from office girl to Cutie Honey in the comic, she is totally
nude. What will Anno do this live action movie? He just says to press,"You can
expect...". Also she will change her costume about 30 times . Shooting already has
begun last week.
*There will be cameo appearenced by an old Toho monster on "Godzilla X
Mothra X Mecha Godzilla,Tokyo SOS". I will find out which one soon.
*Takashi Miike's new film,"Zebra Man" starts shooting this week.This is not
going to be another Yakuza movie,it will SF/Action movie. An elemetary teacher
fights against space aliens.Shou Aikawa will play protagonist who transforms
to Ultraman type super hero. Miike promises to the press,"I am not going to use
any CGI".
*Chinese actress, Li Gong will be the head of judge on competition at 16th
Tokyo International Film Festival on Nobember. Yoshimitsu Morita's new film
"Ashura no gotoku" will be the opening movie and Pixar's "Finding Nemo" closes the
film festival. Takashi Miike's "You've got a call" will have its world primere at this
festival.
*"Cosmic Rescue" is new Japanese made Imax movie.It features full of VFX but
kids group V6's acting is terrible.This movie will be shown at Comic
Convention in San Diego(July 17th to 20th)and Tronto Film Festival(September 4th to
13th).
*"Umizaru" is new film from Toho co. which is based on popular comic.It is
about life of 14 divers at the ocean military.Eichiro Hazumi is first time
director but has been working with director Katsuyuki Motohiro whose new film
"Bayside Shakedown 2" will be at the theaters
this weekend.
SHORT REVIEW
*"Battlefield Stadium"(Klockworx) directed by Yudai Kato,produced by Ryuhei
Kitamura
Yudai who is the right hand man of Ryuhei Kitamura. He worked as 2nd unit director for
"Versus" and "Alive". He chooses as his first feature film ,"Battlefield
Stadium" which is based on a popular comic. It is story about 2 high school baseball
teams who fight each other on the ground. Do not expect usual baseball game,they are
just killing each other. Especially the Gedo high school baseball team which look like
Zombies(head of guy looks like Jim Carey's Mask). Just imagine, this is a baseball
version of "Sholin Soccer". This movie received Yubari International Funtastic
Film Festival 2003 Grand Prix Award. "Battlefield Stadium" is a little funny baseball
battle movie.
www.Klockworx.com/Jigoku
BOXOFFICE
Terminator rules Japan again. Biggest surprise is "Battle Royale 2" comes in
strongly at 3rd place last week, but it already starts dropping to 5th.
Here are the winners
- 1(New)Terminator 3
- 2(1) The Matrix Reloaded
- 3(2)Charlies Angels:Full Throttle
- 4(New)Treasure Planet
- 5(3)Battle Royale 2
That's all for this week.
See ya at the movies!
Coolpigmon@aol.com
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