Cannes line up!!!! Hideo Nakata!!!

by Matthew Hardstaff

First we had the Udine Far East Film Festival line-up on Tuesday. Today, thanks to Wildgrounds, we have the first chunk of Cannes! Of course, it comes as no surprise that Takeshi Kitano's highly anticipated return to the gangster genre, 'Outrage', will be in competition. But what is exciting/interesting is that Hideo Nakata's newest English language venture, 'Chatroom' is going to be screening out of competition.

Speaking of Hideo Nakata, he seems to be hell bent on exploring the horrific uses of technology. 'Ringu' was the game changer. Now 'Chatroom' deals with, as the names states, chatrooms, and depressed teenagers using them to manipulate each other. And in March he started production on 'The Incite Mill', based on a novel by Honobu Yonezawa. According to Asianmediawiki:

Ten people gather together after reading an advertisement offering a job that pays 112,000 Yen ($1,236 USD) per hour. The ten people then find themselves confined in a building and forced to partake in a murdering game. They are then killed one by one ...

Sounds like 'Battle Royale' meets 'Saw', but with Nakata at the helm, I'm sure it will be exploring the 'big brother' type angle with a more dread inducing manner, as opposed to Fukasaku's kinetic fireball masterpiece. Either way, makes me excited.

Its apparently a 50th anniversary project for Horipro Management Company, the first artist management company in Japan to offer public stock. Most of the cast, including the living anime character Tatsuya Fujiwara, are represented by Horipro. Hopefully this will also wash the bad taste out of my mouth that was left after watching Shinji Takeda in 'Lovedeath'.