Legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle to lens a pink film musical for Shinji Imaoka

by Chris MaGee

There are very few cinematographers who can sell a film simply by their involvement. The one man working right now who can do that again and again is Christopher Doyle. The 59-year-old expat Australian has established a reputation as a cinematic genius with his camera work on the films of Wong Kar Wai. His use of brilliant saturated colours and eccentric use of focus and lighting has been used as a marketing tool for films such as Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park", Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's "Last Life in the Universe" and M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water". Now Doyle is apparently teaming up with a Japanese film legend to bring a very odd project to the screen,

Japanese film blogger and industry insider Jason Gray is reporting that Doyle has signed on to shoot an upcoming pinku eiga musical in Tokyo with pink film director Shinji Imaoka. Tentatively titled "Underwater Love" the film marks the first time German DVD distributor Rapid Eye will be producing a film. Imaoka is of course known for being on of the "Seven Lucky Gods of Pink" and has given us such classic pink films as "Lunch Box" and "Frog Song".

Besides Doyle's high profile involvement in this project Gray is reminding us that some folks well know in the Japanese films circuit, namely Nippon Connection programmer Alex Zahlten and Midnight Eye co-founder Tom Mes, have had a crack at translating and polishing the script. This will definitely be a project we'll be keeping our eye on.