Where: Cinema 1, Barbican Centre, London

When: 29 Oct 2010, 7.30pm / 9.30pm

Two new shlock horror titles straight from Japan introduced by writer Jasper Sharp, curator of the new Zipangu Fest, the UK’s premier festival devoted to Japanese film.The evening will begins with Robo Geisha screening at 7.30pm, while the 9.30pm showing of Big Tits Zombie 3D is accompanied by the UK premiere of the short film Augmented City by award‐winning director Keiichi Matsuda.The full Zipangu Fest lineup will be announced during the evening.

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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.

Koji Shiraishi's Grotesque

I wrote about the UK banning of Koji Shiraishi’s Grotesque a month or so back, primarily to refocus attention on what the role of the BBFC is in this increasingly multimedia, fast download age, as well as exploring issues of whether the Japanese have a particular penchant for blood-drenched sadism or whether it’s in fact us in the West who select our image of Japanese film to fit our own tastes and preconceptions. Anyway, the news of the ban got back to Tokyo, resulting in this fascinating article in Metropolis magazine by Sarah Cortina, which explores just these sort of issues. I was one of the interviewees for the piece, and the only one based in the UK. Others include Shiraishi himself, who now rather interestingly is suggesting his future filmmaking path lies in more comic territory, Robo Geisha producer Akira Yamaguchi and Tokyo Gore Police director Yoshihiro Nishimura. Well, I doubt I’m going to win myself any new friends with my comments on this kind of film, but I like the angle of the piece, and it’s always an honour to be cited in such a widely-circulated magazine.