Bueno’s latest Tokusatsu romp, Strega, had its day at the 27th Yubari International Film Festival throughout last weekend. Actor and filmmaker Bueno was on hand for the festivities along with surprise guests that included Yuki Kuroda (Glaive of Kamen Rider Blade) and Miho Wakabayashi (Momoyo of Gun Caliber), with splatter movie maestro Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police, Kodoku: Meatball Machine) providing the introductory.
“Viewers these days always bitch and whine about compliance this, compliance that…it’s bullshit.” said Nishimura, in part. “As creators, we’ve been waiting for someone to bring tokusatsu back to what it was. Back to the time of Kamen Rider Amazon and Showa Ultraman where all the badguys and monsters would get their heads torn off and ripped to shreds by the stars of the show.”
He adds: “…And someone FINALLY decided to answer the call for something like that, but the thing is…he ain’t even Japanese.” which reportedly drew a huge laugh from the crowd; Bueno is Canadian-born Filipino and has been a resident in Japan for the last thirteen years.
The Yubari fest kicked off its three-day event at three seperate venues with Strega screening for a packed crowd on Saturday at the Yubari Chamber of Commerce. The film drew rousing applause from the audience while at one point after, Bueno greeted the cheering crowd with high fives for three-minutes straight, and one female attendee became a Strega super fan and hugged him.
Bueno then hosted a Q&A about the movie before attedees lined up to take photos. I’ll be working up an interview draft between now and the next week at some point before long, but Bueno took to his own stock of photos via social media by way of Twitter and Facebook to share which you can view below.
Check them out below as well as my recent review, and keep your eyes peeled with a feature film rollout coming soon followed by a webseries cut thereafter.
