by Chris MaGee"Tora-san" and "Twlight Samurai" director Yoji Yamada has finally been able to fulfill his long held artistic dream: to bring the full scope and majesty of the kabuki theatre to the movie screen. Yamada, actress Yuki Uchida, and famed kabuki actor Kanzaburo Nakamura made the announcement of Yamada's latest project "Cinema Kabuki" at a press conference held at the Sony Building in Ginza on Sunday.
Using the latest high-performance HD and surround sound technology Yamada personally directed and filmed a performance of the popular kabuki play "The Tale of Bunshichi (Ninjôbanashi Bunshichi Mottoi)" about a craftsman weighed down by gambling debts and his daughter who works as a prostitute in a local brothel.
Yamada's "The Tale of Bunshichi" already received its world premiere at the 2008 Skip City festival that took place in Saitama this Summer, but Yamada revealed at yesterday's press conference that the film would be getting a wide release in Japan later this year.
Actually Cinema Kabuki has been around since 2003, with one of the installments screening at the NY film fest. Yamada's the first movie director to get behind the HD cameras. The fall release was announced back in September 2007, when he signed on.
ReplyDeleteShochiku is working on some kind of US release.
Bunshichi was very enjoyable. Renjishi opens in Dec.