Director Shigemichi Sugita’s new film is finally rolling out the first bits of footage in a new pair of trailers for Kikyo: The Return. The film took to MIPCOM several months ago and eventually screened with a star-studded affair for the 32nd Tokyo International Film Festival.
The film stars acclaimed Lifetime Achievement Award-winning actor Tatsuya Nakadai, whose distinguished, eclectic career dates back as far as Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), Masaki Kobayashi’s Hara-kiri (1962) and Kihachi Okamoto’s Sword Of Doom (1966) to name a few.
Shot using 8K technology, Nakadai plays a man who falls ill at the end of his thirty year journey and returns to his hometown where he decides to save a girl in dire straits. Sugita directs from a script he wrote alongside Masahiro Kobayashi, based on “Kikyo” by Shuhei Fujisawa, which sits among a collection of his short novels, “Matazo no Hi” from Bungei Shunju.
Also starring are Takako Tokiwa, Kazuki Kitamura, Naoto Ogata, Ayumi Tanida, Jiro Sato, Misato Tanaka, Aki Maeda, Yoshiko Mita, Isao Hashizume and Atsuo Nakamura, and with music by Takashi Kako.
Kikyo: The Return will share a limited theatrical release in Japan prior to screening for Nihon Eiga Broadcasting Corporation’s Samurai Drama Channel in February.
