Miike Interview

Midnight Eye's Tom Mes is in town doing his Tom Mes things (start a blog, Tom!) and called me yesterday to shoot a last-minute interview with director Miike Takashi for some upcoming DVD releases from the excellent Rapid Eye Movies in Germany (Hi, Stephan). I did a maintenance check of all my camera and sound gear and headed down Shibuya for the shoot.

Miike was in fine form in a stylish leather jacket and his trademark mirror shades. The last time I met him was for an interview back in June 2003 (already 3 1/2 years ago??). He brought along some albums of photos for Sukiyaki Western: Django (see info here). It looks pretty incredible. People are going to love it. And yes, there is a gatling gun in it.

A lot of interesting stuff came across the transom during the interview, which touched on Audition, Imprint, Big Bang Love, Juvenile A and the aforementioned Sukiyaki Western, but probably the most interesting tidbit was that Miike is returning to directing for the theater with -- wait for it -- a stage adaptation of Zatoichi, starring none other than Aikawa Show. The production will open this December.

Update: My mention of the Zatoichi stage production has been picked up by sites around the globe, including Toronto's venerable Twitch, Mark Russell's informative blog on Korean movies and culture, The Hawaii Int'l Film Festival film programmers blog and Germany's biggest Miike Takashi site.