News of a new Ichi movie is very exciting indeed. The twist this time ? In Sori Fumihiko's upcoming 2008 ICHI movie - Zatoichi is now a woman. From the short bits revealed it looks like it might just work. Former idol singer and model, young actress Haruka Ayase plays blind swordsman Ichi and supposedly no doubles were used for the swordfight scenes. The actress spent a month in intense training with sword action supervisor Hiroshi Kuze (who worked with Akira Kurosawa on "Ran"). Rumors have it this is no Azumi style movie and it's faithful in spirit to the original flicks whilst still bringing something new. Can't wait to see how she recreates / updates Ichi's unique sword style. Ayase has very big feet to step into not only those of original Ichi Shintarô Katsu-San, who for many, myself included, is still unsurpassable, but she also has to take on those of Takeshi Kitano who already successfully recreated Ichi for the 21st century. Director Sori Fumihiko previously directed "Ping Pong" and the 3D SF CGI epic "Vexville" which featured an exclusive cut from Carl Craig on the soundtrack. He is well respected. Sadly we will probably have to wait until 2009 to see this stateside and subtitled.
Meanwhile our chances of ever seeing cult director Takashi Miike's current Tokyo theatrical staging of a Zatoichi play seem pretty much to be zero.
And Ichi fever shows no signs of slowing down with Sonny Chiba, under his newly created alias of Rindo Wachinaga, announced his first directorial project ZA TOICHI (English title The Toichi). The script written by Chiba is said to be take it's themes from the TV series of Zatoichi. Relatively unknown actor Ginji Yoshikawa (who previously worked with Steven Segal) is confirmed for the lead role of a moneylender who, like the swordsman Zatoichi, is blind. There is a possibility that Chiba will co-star under his acting name. The film's budget is reportedly 200 million yen and filming is scheduled to begin in April, followed by a possible Japanese release in the fall.
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