JJ Sonny Chiba will reprise superhero role '7-Color Mask/Nana-Iro Kamen' [七色仮面]

I'm a couple days late on this but this is great news. JJ Sonny Chiba is going to revive the role that got him his start in acting. At the age of 19 Sonny Chiba took over the title role in the 1959 Japanese television series Nana-Iro Kamen or 7-Color Mask. It was Toei Company's first super-hero series and lasted for 57 episodes; Chiba starring in the last 18. The hero of this series is a young detective named Kotarô Ran, who, unknown to anyone (even his friends), is a master of disguise, utilizing 7 different personalities. Most of his disguises are odd characters, like a magician and a cigar-smoking Indian, but Kotarô's 7th disguise is the 2-gun-toting caped, golden-masked superhero - 7-Color Mask!

The creator of this series, Kohan Kawauchi, passed away last month and he met with Chiba before his passing. Kawauchi shared with Chiba that he would have liked to have seen Chiba reprise his heroic role. Spurned on by his dying friend's request Chiba made the decision to go ahead with a film version remake of the television series. Whether Chiba will aim for a modern envisioning of the series or try to capture some of the colorful [ahem] characters and costumes of the original series we will have to wait and see. Maybe. You see, the film is expected to be completed in a year but reports say that it will privately screened almost a year to the day in the "Super Museum - Time Machine" in Otsu, Shiga, a museum of Chiba's prized possessions that opens on May 17.

I can't imagine something like this never being given a formal release. I've embedded a couple short videos from YouTube after the break.