The times they are a changing for everyone's favorite, once maverick, Japanese film director. Sure, some of wish for the Miike of old, the Miike that challenged our perceptions of cinema, that blew our minds with challenging content and incredible visuals, but with success come great demand and the majors are sure throwing a lot of projects at Miike these days now that he has proven he can also be a box office draw. But unlike other Asian directors that have attached themselves to a multitude of projects you know Miike can get things done. Who knows. With all this coin he is making perhaps he has a few personal projects set aside and he can use these paychecks to fund those.
And so, days after the announcement that Miike would be remaking Thirteen Assassins there was another announcement today of another project for our beloved director. After he has finished that project he'll start an adaptation of Buichi Terasawa's original manga Takeru. Teresawa is a massive presence in the Japanese manga scene. He was an apprentice of the "god of manga" Osamu Tezuka and sells 20 million volumes of manga annually.
Takeru is set in a fictitious world which is neither past or future, the manga follows a man with superhuman powers trying to protect the girl he loves. The producer, Yoshiya Nagasawa, is aiming to set the project up as a pan-Asian co-production and is currently in talks with a plethora of high-profile Asian actors from China, Korea and Japan. And with a budget of $30 million the producer also promises a big scale production too, "We will use lots of green screen visuals, but Miike's intention in this adaptation is to make it as lifelike as possible," Nagasawa said.
Miike yay!!