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Published on Friday, June 14, 2002 - 8:32am |
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Takashi Miike Mini-Interview From Seattle!! Plus Details On Japanese Outlaw Masters Series At Egyptian In LosAngeles!!
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
We’ve been talking about Miike a lot lately here at AICN. Hard to believe that most of us had no idea who the guy was a year ago. Thanks to the festival play of films like AUDITION and DEAD OR ALIVE and its sequel and VISITOR Q and FUDOH, suddenly fans of extreme cinema from around the world are talking about Miike and trading his films illicitly, enjoying the rush of finding someone truly mad who is working in overdrive at the moment.
Thanks to the remarkable American Cinematheque’s upcoming JAPANESE OUTLAW MASTERS series, I’m going to get a chance to see ICHI THE KILLER on the bigscreen as well as his musical, HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS. Here’s an e-mail from this afternoon:
Didn't know if you knew about this so I thought I'd drop you a line.
There screening various japanese films starting June 21st. Two of
particular interest are Pistol Opera and Ichi the killer.
Here is the link!!
I also got this from one of our readers in Seattle:
Hi Harry;
I am in the midst of a 20 film run at SIFF, and went to the "Happiness Of The Katakuris" and asked a question or 2. Here's what I learned. The film seemed somewhat familiar to me, in that it reminded me of the cool Korean film "The Quiet Family", so I asked hime if he ever saw it. His reply was that he had seen it, and enjoyed it so much, that he bought the rights to remake it. He used claymation, because of budget, and he didn't want the old man who played Grandpa, to get killed doing his own stunts. He said that the film was not well received in Japan, and that the Japanese "didn't get it".
He also mentioned that the reason he is so prolific is because he needs to keep food on the table, so he has to work a lot. The other bit of interesting news is that he plans to remake "Agitator" using the same script, but "with a totally different approach". This left everyone scratching their heads. He took off Sunday to visit Bruce Lee's grave as well. I did manage to get an autograph, and shake his hand. He's a very quiet man, but he seemed nice enough. I have some films left that I could review if you're interested.
Butterfly Smile
Dark Water
Monrak Tattoo
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance
Killer Tattoo
I hope this info is helpful. If you credit me in some way, call me Llapman.
I certainly hope we hear more from Llapman about the other films he saw at The Seattle International Film Festival. I saw DARK WATER a few weeks ago on tape, a new ghost story from the director of the cult classic RING, and thought it was good, atmospheric, and very simple. All the others sound fascinating, too. In the meantime, if you are one of the readers in LA who goes to the ICHI THE KILLER or HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS screenings, look for the Evil Genius... I’ll be there.
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