Seijun Suzuki present next film project "A Sense of Honey" in Hong Kong in March

by Chris MaGee

It seems like forever ago that we reported on legendary 86-year-old director Seijun Suzuki pitching a new film project at the 2008 Tokyo Project Gathering. At that point Suzuki wanted to adapt Murô Saisei's Showa Era novel "Mitsu no Aware" which tells the erotic story of an old man who has a relationship with his pet goldfish that has transformed into a beautiful woman. Of course excitement was very high for this news... a new film by the man who brought us "Branded to Kill", "Pistol Opera" and "Princess Raccoon" - but the weeks and months passed and the project seemed to have gone into limbo.

Then we got word from longtime J-Film pow-Wow friend Kathie Smith in Minneapolis about this articleposted at Screen Daily about the Hong Kong Asian Financing Forum taking place between March 22nd and March 24th as part of this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival. 25 film projects from across Asia are going to be presented at the three day event, amongst those is a new film by Suzuki titled "A Sense of Honey". Could this be the same film?

A quick check with one of the film's producers (and friend of the Pow-Wow) Yukie Kito reveals that indeed this is the same project. "I am very honored to work with such a master director," told us, "It is based on Saisei Murô's novel. He is an acclaimed author from earlier Showa era. It is a fantasy tale, that is so beautiful. I can't wait myself for what kind of visual images the director can bring to the screen."

There is no casting news or release date announced yet for "A Sense of Honey" but we're all just happy to hear that Suzuki will indeed be returning to the director's chair and that the project announced so many months ago hasn't been lost in development. More news as we receive it!