I didn’t know if I should categorize this piece as news or a rant… I decided to go with a rant so that I wouldn’t get people freaking out in the comments saying “Everyone knew about this in January, dude!” Well, the Pow-Wow blog wasn’t online in January and I thought that there would be a lot of you out there who hadn’t seen or possibly heard of this yet.
So… like I said it’s been known for quite a while that Fumihiko Sori, the producer of “Appleseed” and the director behind the much loved “Ping Pong” and the futuristic anime “Vexille” was going to be bringing a restart of the Zatoichi franchise to the big screen. What? More platinum blonde Kitano? Nope. This time around we’ll be getting actress Haruka Ayase of “Crying Out Love In the Center of the World” fame as the blind swordsman… or swordswoman.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with a radical restart to a movie franchise, and I don’t have a problem with a little gender-bending of a classic male character as long as it’s done in an intelligent, feminist way.
Even though this one has Sori behind the camera, a director who showed a really interesting visual style with “Ping Pong” I get more than doubtful when I see the screenplay was written by Taeko Asano, yes, a woman, but the screenwriter of the shoujyo manga inspired “Nana”. Add to this Ayase, the subject of millions of jiggly T & A shots posted online as “Ichi” and I start to worry that we’re going to be getting something more akin to Ryuhei Kitamura’s “Azumi” films (I know… a lot of you really liked them. I’m sorry!) or even worse something targeted at men ages 18-45.
Call me old fashioned, but I‘ll take a line of tap dancing villagers over katana wielding teenaged girls in mini skirts any day. Judge for yourself though by taking a look at the teaser trailer and official site below:
Official site: http://wwws.warnerbros.co.jp/ichi/
So… like I said it’s been known for quite a while that Fumihiko Sori, the producer of “Appleseed” and the director behind the much loved “Ping Pong” and the futuristic anime “Vexille” was going to be bringing a restart of the Zatoichi franchise to the big screen. What? More platinum blonde Kitano? Nope. This time around we’ll be getting actress Haruka Ayase of “Crying Out Love In the Center of the World” fame as the blind swordsman… or swordswoman.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with a radical restart to a movie franchise, and I don’t have a problem with a little gender-bending of a classic male character as long as it’s done in an intelligent, feminist way.
Even though this one has Sori behind the camera, a director who showed a really interesting visual style with “Ping Pong” I get more than doubtful when I see the screenplay was written by Taeko Asano, yes, a woman, but the screenwriter of the shoujyo manga inspired “Nana”. Add to this Ayase, the subject of millions of jiggly T & A shots posted online as “Ichi” and I start to worry that we’re going to be getting something more akin to Ryuhei Kitamura’s “Azumi” films (I know… a lot of you really liked them. I’m sorry!) or even worse something targeted at men ages 18-45.
Call me old fashioned, but I‘ll take a line of tap dancing villagers over katana wielding teenaged girls in mini skirts any day. Judge for yourself though by taking a look at the teaser trailer and official site below:
Official site: http://wwws.warnerbros.co.jp/ichi/
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