Marché du Film: Yasuo Furuhata's THE HAUNTED SAMURAI (TSUKIGAMI)
FOR TRAILER, SEE THE BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE
Distribution rights for Yasuo Furuhata's The Haunted Samurai (Tsukigami) are to be offered for sale by Toei Company Ltd. (Tôei K.K.) at this year's Marché du Film in Cannes, which runs from May 16th to 26th. Toei is scheduled to release the movie theatrically in Japan on June 23rd.
As was previously reported here on ScreenAnarchy, The Haunted Samurai (Tsukigami) is based on the eponymous novel Tsukigami by Jirô Asada. It stars (listed order corresponds to order on official website) Satoshi Tsumabuki, Mari Natsuki, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Sawa Suzuki, Ei Morisako, Yûko Fueki, Ryûta Satô, Hidekazu Akai, Teruyuki Kagawa, Toshiyuki Nishida, and Yôsuke Eguchi.
Here's a description of The Haunted Samurai from the Ryuganji article "Tsumabuki incites divine wrath" (December 13, 2006): "Tsumabuki plays a lowly but academically diligent warrior named Bessho Hikoshiro who finds himself unable to move up in the world due to the stifling caste system of the Bakumatsu era. After being expelled from the household into which he was adopted through marriage and separated from his wife and son, he moves in with his disapproving elder brother and his wife. He meets his old class rival Enomoto Takeaki, now a commander of a naval ship, and is later told by a kindly noodle shop owner that Enomoto's rise in social status came about after he prayed at a shrine in Mukojima. Stumbling home drunk one night, Hikoshiro falls down a riverbank and comes across a small run-down shrine which he is convinced is affiliated to the one in Mukojima. Pressing his hands together in prayer, he unwittingly invites the unwanted attentions of the gods of poverty, pestilence and death...
Nishida Toshiyuki plays god of poverty Iseya, Akai Hidekazu is god of pestilence Kuzuryu, and the 1200-year-old death god is embodied by 9-year-old Morisako Ei, better known as the live-action TV incarnation of venerable manga and anime character 'Chibi Maruko-chan'."
The Haunted Samurai teaser trailer - 1000 KB (streaming Windows Media)
The Haunted Samurai teaser trailer - 512 KB (streaming Windows Media)
