Since the beginning of May when we got our first look at Toshiaki Toyoda's next film The Blood of Rebirth. Now, thanks to the watchful eyes of Kevin at NipponCinema and Don at Ryuganji there is now a trailer to watch. Huzzah!
The time is the Middle Ages, when gods and demons reigned over a larger dominion than humans, before humans came to rule over the entire world. Oguri, a renowned masseur, is summoned to the fortress of the ruler of the dark world, a man known simply as the Lord and ailing from a venereal disease. After encouraging Terute--a captive princess from another land--to escape, Oguri is poisoned to death by the Lord before he can make his own getaway. At a fork in the road between heaven and hell, Oguri is sent back to the land of the living in the form of a Hungry Ghost, in a state of apparent death. Saved by a monk who happened to pass by, he learns of a "spring of rebirth." Meanwhile, Terute manages to flee from the Lord's fortress and reunites with the undead Oguri. But the Lord is hot on their heels, hell bent on finding and punishing Terute.
The pity of it all is Adam Torel of Third Window Films has already seen it and has some disparaging words about it over at Kevin's site, I found this film to be horribly disappointing. Unbelievably slow and tedious. It's a pity as I'm such a big fan of his previous works. And that's just too bad to read.
I've seen this as well and disagree with Adam on it. With the exception of the horribly bad effects sequence at the end - which they strangely enough included in the trailer - I actually found it very engaging and hypnotic. He's right about not much happening but I thought the way in which it didn't happen was pretty damn beautiful. Great soundtrack, too, from Toyoda's band TwinTail.