HarukiKadokawa Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I did a lot of whining here when the news broke that The Weinstein Company was planning a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, so it's only right that the latest Kurosawa remake receive the same treatment: Powerful (and wildly misguided) Japanese producer Haruki Kadokawa has announced plans to make a new version of Sanjuro. Granted, the fact that this one is being made by a Japanese studio with Japanese actors -- it will be directed by Yoshimitsu Morita and star Yuji Oda as Toshirô Mifune's unnamed ronin -- automatically makes its better than an American Seven Samurai starring George Clooney, but still. For the love of God, why?

One one hand, I suppose you've got to admire Kadokawa for striking while the iron is hot: His Yamoto was a massive hit last year, and he knows he's pretty much able to do anything he wants right now (he's also behind that Genghis Kahn biopic). On the other hand, however, I just cannot comprehend the balls of directors and actors willing to step into the shoes of masters like Kurosawa and Mifune -- the amount of money on offer must be impressive indeed, since it has the power to make normally sensible people lose their minds entirely.

The film will hit Japanese theaters next year.

To celebrate the 800th anniversary of the founding of Mongolia, The Blue Wolf - To the Ends of the Earth and Sea, an epic film exploring the life of Genghis Khan, is being planned. Produced by Haruki Kadokawa, whose  controversial Yamato: The Last Battle (about a Japanese warship sunk by the US during World War II) has done phenomenal business at the Japanese box office, the film is set to star Yamato star Takashi Sorimachi as Khan.

With a budget of about $25 million, the movie will take Khan from his birth (he's descended from a blue wolf - who knew?) in 1162 to his death 65 years later, by which time he had conquered most of Asia. Some of that budget will be saved by the complete cooperation of the Mongolian government, which gives the production thousands of cheap extras to dress up in period gear and throw onto battlefields all over Asia. Shooting will begin in June and is expected to take about three months.

It's too bad that something like this is unlikely to ever see the light of day in the US - who could resist a bloody, period epic, even if it does have subtitles? Come on, distributors - somebody, take a chance!