So here it is, the first officially announcement on this website of Zipangu Fest, which will be kicking off with a pre-emptive double strike of Big Tits Zombie 3D and Robo Geisha on 29th October at the Barbican. The first of these will be shown in eye-popping 3D, accompanied by the UK premiere of the short film Augmented City by award‐winning director Keiichi Matsuda.
The first UK‐wide festival devoted to Japanese Film, Zipangu Fest will introduce works new and old, previously unseen by mainstream UK film audiences, to demonstrate the many identities of Japan as depicted by some of the country’s most exciting and revered talents. For its main event this year, Zipangu Fest will be holding around 15 screenings and other related events at venues across London’s vibrant East End, allowing us to keep ticket prices down to less than half those charged in the West End. Cinema venues include the Barbican, Genesis Cinema in Whitechapel, Café 1001 in Brick Lane and the Working Man’s Club in Bethnal Green. The main body of film events will be held in London from 23rd to 28th November 2010, with regional events currently arranged in Bristol, Leeds and Coventry, and more to be confirmed.
AV starlet Sora Aoi in Big Tits Zombie, part of the inaugural Zipangu Fest
The Japanese Halloween Schlockfest Double Bill, has been organised by Zipangu Fest as part of number of wider seasons of Japanese films running at the Barbican throughout October and November, which include girlsworld: women in contemporary japanese cinema, a small retrospective of films by Kenji Mizoguchi, and later in November, retrospectives of Kitano and Akira Kurosawa. I will be there to introduce both titles on this Halloween double bill, during which Zipangu Fest will also announce its full line-up for the main festival, running 23-28 November. Prior to this, there’s going to be a number of other smaller events in various places across the UK, including screenings of Hiroshi Shimizu’s Children of the Beehive in Leeds, as announced in my previous post, and some programmes of 1960s experimental films, about which details will be announced in the coming weeks.
BIG TITS ZOMBIE (KYONYÛ DRAGON) 3D, directed by Takao Nakano and starring Japanese adult video superstar Sora Aoi, is a tongue‐in‐cheek take on the Western/zombie genre Japanese‐style, with bored exotic dancers unwittingly unleashing an army of the undead and having to battle them with nothing but samurai swords, chainsaws and wasabi paste, in a live action film adaptation of Rei Mikamoto’s cult manga. Peppered with 3D set pieces, KYONYÛ DRAGON (BIG TITS ZOMBIE) 3D is distributed in the UK by Terracotta Distribution.
Another of Zipangu Fest's Halloween Schlockers, Robo Geisha, directed by Noboru Iguchi, with special effects by Yoshihiro Nishimura
From the team that brought us The Machine Girl, ROBOGEISHA is unabashedly over‐the‐top and deliriously inventive. A megalomaniac Japanese businessman and his son recruit a vicious gang of surgically‐enhanced Geisha assassins. Directed by Noboru Iguchi, with special effects supervisor Nishimura Yoshihiro, and featuring buildings that bleed, a Giant Castle Robot, and breast milk from hell, it’s a wonderfully insane mix that will have you laughing out loud. ROBOGEISHA is distributed in the UK by Cine Asia.
The full press release can be downloaded from the Zipangu Fest website.
Posted at 17:27 on 25 August 2010
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