doug maverick
01-21-2009, 09:18 AM
new movie by takeshi kaneshiro saw this over at kungfucinema.com
Kaneshiro battles parkour acrobat in 'K-20'
Kaneshiro battles parkour acrobat in ‘K-20′
By Mark Pollard • January 20, 2009
While HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS star Takeshi Kaneshiro is making yet another big splash in China with his follow up role in the recently released second half of John Woo’s historical war epic RED CLIFF, he is also appearing in a new superhero actioner that premiered in Japan in December and is now coming to Singapore.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK (2008).
Fantastic poster art for K-20 recalls the glory days of early pulp cinema.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK is set in a fictional Japanese city in 1949 where World War II was never fought and a rigid class system is still in place. The plot, which is likened to a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Spider-Man, concerns the efforts of suave and brilliant detective Kogoro Akechi (Toru Nakamura) to apprehend a “fiend of 20 faces,” a masked thief who steals from the rich while effortlessly free-running through the city to stay one step ahead of the law. Kaneshiro enters as Heikichi Endo, a circus acrobat hired to photograph the detective and his high-society fiancé, Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu). This leads Heikichi to be mistaken for the thief, compelling him to track down the real thief as Kogoro and his stalwart assistant Kobayashi (Kanata Hongo) close in.
The film is Japan’s answer to Hollywood’s popular superhero genre, according to executive producer Seiji Okuda. “In Japan, superhero movies haven’t been produced for a long time. In Hollywood you find SPIDER-MAN and BATMAN, but here the same type of heroes don’t exist. Reviving the superhero tradition in Japan with K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK is something that gives me great pleasure.”
Writer-director Shimako Sato has made this her first feature film project in a decade after starting out as a horror filmmaker in 1992 and transitioning to TV production since. She based the film on a 1989 mystery novel by playwright Soh Kitamura titled THE FIEND WITH TWENTY FACES. The novel, in turn, was based on the works of author Ramp Edogawa who is widely regarded as the father of Japanese mystery novels.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK (2008).
The film’s co-star, Toru Nakamura, like Kaneshiro is a veteran of Hong Kong cinema with credits that include GEN-X COPS and TOKYO RAIDERS. Most recently he co-starred in executive producer Stephen Chow’s SHAOLIN GIRL, a Japanese spin-off of SHAOLIN SOCCER.
K-20 features lots of daredevil stunt work with the character played by Kaneshiro chasing the Fiend about the city as both use acrobatic and parkour techniques. According to Sato, their stunt doubles were a pair of Russian stuntmen who performed all of the parkour action without wires. Inspired by the use of parkour in CASINO ROYALE, Sato set out to push the boundaries of what has been seen of this relatively new urban sport on film.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK (2008).
“In movie scenes up until now, it’s generally been a regular person against a traceur (parkour practitioner). I wanted to shoot action scenes with two traceurs battling each other, which was one reason I made this film,” explains Sato.
Local action choreography fell to the oversight of two men. The first is Makoto Yokoyama, a leading member of the AAC Stunts team with nearly 20 years of experience that, like many Japanese stuntmen, includes an extensive tour as stuntman and second unit director on various POWER RANGERS series. More recently he was action director for YO-YO GIRL COP (2006). The other AD is Koike Tatsurou who recently choreographed action for the wonderfully titled fantasy actioner NEGATIVE HAPPY CHAIN SAW EDGE (2007 - trailer).
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK opens in theaters in Singapore on February 12th. A trailer with English subtitles is available at Festive Films.
trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P5rqavPTec
looks like a cross between zoro and v for vendetta
Kaneshiro battles parkour acrobat in 'K-20'
Kaneshiro battles parkour acrobat in ‘K-20′
By Mark Pollard • January 20, 2009
While HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS star Takeshi Kaneshiro is making yet another big splash in China with his follow up role in the recently released second half of John Woo’s historical war epic RED CLIFF, he is also appearing in a new superhero actioner that premiered in Japan in December and is now coming to Singapore.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK (2008).
Fantastic poster art for K-20 recalls the glory days of early pulp cinema.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK is set in a fictional Japanese city in 1949 where World War II was never fought and a rigid class system is still in place. The plot, which is likened to a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Spider-Man, concerns the efforts of suave and brilliant detective Kogoro Akechi (Toru Nakamura) to apprehend a “fiend of 20 faces,” a masked thief who steals from the rich while effortlessly free-running through the city to stay one step ahead of the law. Kaneshiro enters as Heikichi Endo, a circus acrobat hired to photograph the detective and his high-society fiancé, Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu). This leads Heikichi to be mistaken for the thief, compelling him to track down the real thief as Kogoro and his stalwart assistant Kobayashi (Kanata Hongo) close in.
The film is Japan’s answer to Hollywood’s popular superhero genre, according to executive producer Seiji Okuda. “In Japan, superhero movies haven’t been produced for a long time. In Hollywood you find SPIDER-MAN and BATMAN, but here the same type of heroes don’t exist. Reviving the superhero tradition in Japan with K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK is something that gives me great pleasure.”
Writer-director Shimako Sato has made this her first feature film project in a decade after starting out as a horror filmmaker in 1992 and transitioning to TV production since. She based the film on a 1989 mystery novel by playwright Soh Kitamura titled THE FIEND WITH TWENTY FACES. The novel, in turn, was based on the works of author Ramp Edogawa who is widely regarded as the father of Japanese mystery novels.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK (2008).
The film’s co-star, Toru Nakamura, like Kaneshiro is a veteran of Hong Kong cinema with credits that include GEN-X COPS and TOKYO RAIDERS. Most recently he co-starred in executive producer Stephen Chow’s SHAOLIN GIRL, a Japanese spin-off of SHAOLIN SOCCER.
K-20 features lots of daredevil stunt work with the character played by Kaneshiro chasing the Fiend about the city as both use acrobatic and parkour techniques. According to Sato, their stunt doubles were a pair of Russian stuntmen who performed all of the parkour action without wires. Inspired by the use of parkour in CASINO ROYALE, Sato set out to push the boundaries of what has been seen of this relatively new urban sport on film.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK (2008).
“In movie scenes up until now, it’s generally been a regular person against a traceur (parkour practitioner). I wanted to shoot action scenes with two traceurs battling each other, which was one reason I made this film,” explains Sato.
Local action choreography fell to the oversight of two men. The first is Makoto Yokoyama, a leading member of the AAC Stunts team with nearly 20 years of experience that, like many Japanese stuntmen, includes an extensive tour as stuntman and second unit director on various POWER RANGERS series. More recently he was action director for YO-YO GIRL COP (2006). The other AD is Koike Tatsurou who recently choreographed action for the wonderfully titled fantasy actioner NEGATIVE HAPPY CHAIN SAW EDGE (2007 - trailer).
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK opens in theaters in Singapore on February 12th. A trailer with English subtitles is available at Festive Films.
trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P5rqavPTec
looks like a cross between zoro and v for vendetta