Apparently the man never sleeps.
Waru and Big Bang Love have both just been completed, he's in post with 'Taiyo No Kizu' - starring Sho Aikawa - and word of two more Miike titles has just surfaced.
No idea which of these is coming first, but there was an announcement in the Cannes Market Guide that Miike was re-teaming with Shangri-La producer Kazushi Miki for Tenderness, an "action film that can be enjoyed by both adults and children who love animation and comics". Production on Tenderness is slated to begin in 2007. Also coming? A big budget remake of classic Japanese fantasy film Daimajin for Kadokawa-Herald.
In a brief moment of sanity he has, however, dropped 51 Ways To Protect The Girl from his slate.
Some of this courtesy of the lovely and talented Jiangtou.
Wait, wait, wait...he dropped 51 Ways To Protect The Girl? How's that a good thing? The synposis I read made it sound like it had potential to be a pretty fun flick, especially with Miike attached.
I mentioned Miike bowing out as director on 51 Ways... in a profile I wrote on the project for Screen Int'l at the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), where Excellent Film was looking for pre-sales and co-prod partners.
Miike's schedule conflicted with the production's and he had to step down as director, but at least at the time of writing was still on board as a producer, which included helping find a suitable replacement to helm the project.
The editors in London mistakenly rewrote the piece to state that the story took place during the 1923 Great Kantô Earthquake, when I was in fact only mentioning that disaster to illustrate Tokyo's very real experience with such calamity (the movie is set in the near future).
yeh, the daimajin thing reminds me of 'the great yokai war' for some reason, suspect its a film thats going to have a similar feel and budget etc.
I haven't liked any of Miike's big budget mainstream blockbusters so far so the news that he'll most likely spend another year on making another one isn't good news to me. Not when he could be cranking out 8 low budget wacky masterpieces in the same timeframe.
big budget *mainstream* blockbusters from Miike? what is it? :D
ONE MISSED CALL (can't get more mainstream than that) and YOKAI WAR primarily but also ZEBRAMAN.