Saturday, February 17, 2007
Hula Girls - Lee Sang-il Interview
Was up latish on Friday night writing a piece for Screen on the outcome of the 30th Japan Academy Awards (officially known as the Japan Academy Prize, 日本アカデミー賞 [Japanese only] ). As you may have heard, Hula Girls (official site and imdb entry) did very well, picking up Best Picture, Best Director for Lee Sang-il (李相日監督), Best Supporting Actress for Aoi Yû (蒼井優) and Best Screenplay for Lee and Habara Daisuke. You can see the entire list of Academy winners on Hoga Central here.
Hula Girls also won top prize at this year's Blue Ribbon Awards (Wikipedia and the list of past winners [Japanese only] ), which are chosen by the film critics of Japan's major sports papers.
Last summer I did an interview with Lee-kantoku which ran in an edited down form in Screen. After the recent successes of the film, I thought I'd run the unabridged text. Click here to read it.
And for good measure, here's an earlier interview with Lee on Midnight Eye.
7 comments:
I caught the world premiere at Toronto last year and enjoyed it thoroughly. I asked Lee Sang-il about the impressive dance sequences in the film and was suprised to learn that the actresses had little to no experience prior to this film. Although I do remember Yu Aoi doing some ballet in Shunji Iwai's Hana and Alice.
Nice interview.
Was the overall audience response in T.O. quite good? Do you remember what other kinds of questions people asked?
Aoi...She can do anything.
Thanks for your comment!
Thanks for the great interview, and the link to my blog. For readers' reference, here is my full list of this year's Blue Ribbon winners.
http://hogacentral.blogs.com/hoganews/2007/01/blue_ribbon_awa_1.html
here we go then, one of the many films that's likely to get completely bypassed - no matter how good - because it doesn't fit into a lot of companies intended preconcieved ideas of what they'll release... unfortunately they've talked themselves into picking on stuff whether good or bad (in general terms, of course) and go for "similar" (well, films you can portray as similar) . shame, companies should broaden or open their minds to more natural, broad market types before they support themselves through a period of growth just long enought to persuade a whole generation there's nothing more to be found out there - ultimately talking themselves out of potential future growth. the anime community is still feeling the effects of the portrayal post-Akira, despite the range being much more sophisticated than at first seemed, because the selection and marketing kept a small dedicated audience sold on the wrong concepts rather than a small dedicated audience able to communicate with a lot of other people about alternative choices they might themselves enjoy - different choices, that is...
hula girls : coming soon on R2 J with english subs!
logboy
Are you talking specifically about DVD? I don't know about other countries in Europe, but the margins for DVD releases of Japanese films in the UK and Germany waver between very tight and money-losing. For a film to make a profit it'd have to appeal to people beyond Japanese film fans, which is a hard thing to do without spending money on marketing.
Hula Girls definitely has mainstream appeal in its storytelling, so it may get picked up. It was Japan's official entry to the Oscar's and it's won awards here -- could help a bit overseas.
Anyway, as you said yourself the Japanese DVD will have English subs, so you're sorted.
i know, i know. it can be seen. i'm worried, as usual, that there's likely a market for films from japan beyond fans of japanese film - but that the predominant image which could lead people to an interest in such films is so initially entirely different from being truly representative. shame, isnt it? even though it's an obvious point to have made i can't help but feel we're increasingly in a similar situation to the early 90s anime debacle in the UK with sex 'n' horror being the new gods - securing a small market leading us nowhere, rather than securing a small market which can lead us elsewhere : because it's possible to sell japanese film fans in the west more than is often being chosen, and that would in turn allow companies to go a bit beyond the usual short-sighted or short-term prospects with the same kind of money spent on publicity... because it's about a connection to internet discussion (though there's isn't that much of that) and other forms of free publicity perhaps more than it's about print ads and other traditional forms of publicity too - mayb. and yes, i know it sounds odd coming from someone who's involved in online discussion, but if you don't get past that mental block of not wanting to talk about it because you're going to be see as someone wanting to talk about it - and that can actually come from an honest, selfless place, even though it often doesn't, and that's a product of the lack of discussion too - then we're not going to resolve a lot of basic things which are blocking the way to better things for everyone... films like 'hula girls' are likely capable of potentially more than might initially be obvious.
logboy
The film was very well received in Toronto. One audience member, not knowing it was the world premiere, asked Sang-il if the movie was released in Japan and how well it was doing. He responded by saying, "It's going to be released theatrically next week in Japan. The audience response here has given me much hope that it will do well over there."
I personally remember hearing several audience members getting really emotional and crying during the latter parts of the film- I imagine the movie had quite an effect on them.
In regards to questions, the ones I recall were all pretty standard, and have since been covered in your interview.
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