Kazuyoshi Kumakiri adapts gangster manga "Bakugyaku Family"

by Chris MaGee

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri has certainly done the rounds in terms of genres in his roughly 15-year feature filmmaking career. Most of you will best remember Kumakiri for his gory 1997 debut "Kichiku: Banquet of the Beasts" which told of the fictional dissolution of a leftist terrorist group. Since then, though, the 38-year-old Kumakiri has taken on everything from baseball films to dystopian sci-fi. Of late he's been gearing himself towards straight drama with films like "Non-ko" and "Sketches of Keitan City", but now comes word that he is going gangland with an upcoming manga adaptation.

Toei has Kumakiri helming its adaptation of Hiroshi Tanaka's popular street thug manga "Bakugyaku Family", a.k.a. "Bad Boys". The film, starring Sado Abe, Nao Omori, Arata, Kento Hayashi and Yoshimi Tokui, tells the story of a family of bōsōzoku, or violent motorcycle riding street thugs. You can check out the cast decked out in their gang outfits above. Apparently we can expect to see Kumakiri's "Bakugyaku Family" hit Japanese theatres this September.

Thanks to Toei's official site for this news.