Want some more Miike for your moviegoing? Then take a gander at HanWay Films’ latest nab of the auteur’s new action thriller, First Love. The UK-based international sales/distro banner acquired rights to the Japan/UK co-prod which reteams Miike with Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas’ Recorded Picture Company for a fourth time following Hara-kiri: Death Of A Samurai, 13 Assassins, and Blade Of The Immortal.
Deadline‘s Andreas Wiseman notes the film’s description as cited by the producers as follows:
Set over one night in Tokyo, the film will follow Leo, a young boxer down on his luck as he meets his ‘first love’ Monica, a call girl and an addict but still an innocent. Little does Leo know, Monica is unwittingly caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, and the two are pursued through the night by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin sent by the Chinese Triads. According to the production, all their fates intertwine in “spectacular Miike style, at his most and fun and anarchic.”
First Love joins Thomas with producers Muneyuki Kii and Misakao, and Miike with recurring collaborators like screenwriter Miyabi Nakamura (Sukiyaki Western Django, The Bird People In China) composer Koji Endo (who scored both titles as well as Yakuza Apocalypse, The Mole Song 1 and 2, Blade Of The Immortal and JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure) and cinematographer Nobuyasu Kita (who also lensed Miike’s Laplace’s Witch adaptation).
First Love will have its world premiere for Cannes’ Directors Fortnight line-up with UK based sales/distro outlet HanWay Films handling worldwide sales outside of Asia.