Mamoru Oshii to script Miyamoto Musashi film for Production IG

by Chris MaGee

Most of you will know Miyamoto Musashi from his depiction in Hiroshi Inagaki's famed Samurai trilogy of films, and some of you may have read his treatise on war and strategy, "The Book of Five Rings", but if Mamoru Oshii has anything to do with it you'll know even more about him by next summer. Oshii will be scripting a new animated film about the double sword-wielding samurai titled "Miyamoto Musashi: Soken ni Haseru Yume (Musashi Miyamoto: Dream of Riding with Two Swords)" for Production IG. Oshii will not be helming this project though. That honour will go to Mizuho Nishikubo who has previously worked as an animation director on Oshii's "Ghost in the Shell", "Patlabor 2" and "The Sky Crawlers". He was also the animation director for Katsuhito Ishii's animated sequence in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1".

As long as Oshii doesn't have Miyamoto quoting Shakespeare and Milton at length and have a bassett hound sniffing around this could be pretty interesting. Actually, scratch that last point. Maybe the bassett hound could be a temple dog or something. They're so darn cute!

"Miyamoto Musashi: Soken ni Haseru Yume" is scheduled for a summer 2009 release. Thanks to Anime News Network and Variety Asia Online for details on this.