News and Info on the film BUNRAKU

Once a rumor, now it's official....

Ron Perlman cast in Bunraku
Will play the villain in the hybrid martial arts movie

May 9, 2008, 01:00 AM

"Hellboy" star Ron Perlman will play the bad guy in the hybrid martial arts movie "Bunraku."

The film is set in an original hyper-stylized universe, a la "Sin City," and draws from a mixed bag of genres, including puppets, origami, comic books, video games and German expressionism. It follows a drifter (Josh Hartnett) who teams up with a samurai (Japanese actor Gackt) to take on an Eastern European gang lord, played by Perlman.

Also in the cast are Japan's Shun Sugata, Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, Scottish actor Kevin McKidd and Spanish actor Jordi Molla.

Guy Moshe is directing the Snoot Entertainment production from his own script.

"I've always loved movies in the 'no-name stranger coming to town and ending up in a bigger struggle (genre),"' Snoot's Keith Calder said. "I think this is an opportunity to take this genre and spin it on its head and bring a unique and strong visual style to it."

Gackt is a Japanese Visual-kei Rock icon who recently starred in the NHK Taiga drama series "Furin Kazan" and sci-fi film "Moon Child," which he also penned.

Sugata has appeared in "The Last Samurai," "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," and "Ichi the Killer."

Perlman, who lent his voice to Snoot's 2007 animated film "Terra," will next be seen in Universal's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army."

Calder and Jessica Wu are producing along with Nava Levin of Picturesque Films and Ram Bergman. Alex McDowell is co-producing the film.

Perlman is repped by Kritzer Levine Wilkins Entertainment.

SOURCE: HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM | REUTERS | IGN NEWS

Buyers, as is often the case, seem somewhat nonplussed by the festival lineup. Some note they don't discern any obvious pickup targets along the lines of last year's "We Own the Night." Others predict foreign-language films might be the most interesting finds at the fest this year. And several execs expressed curiosity about titles that were still in post-production.

So, perhaps more of the action will be at the Cannes Market this year. "There might be a frenzy of pre-buying," speculated one sales exec hopefully. "People don't need pictures for this year, but for 2009."A sampling of the goods -- both at fest and market -- that buyers say they'll take a closer look at:

Read the rest of the news: VARIETY.COM
For more info about Cannes Film Festival: FESTIVAL-CANNES.FR | WIKI | CANNES FESTIVAL BLOG | IMDB

-edit- FYI from mod karadin: Any footage will be shown to distributors only, not to the public or the press, but the press might see some photos and posters featuring the stars.

An actor and activist, Woody Harrelson is cast in the film (in credits to date) as a bartender, which is a nod to Woody's first notable role - as the bartender "Woody" in the American television series Cheers in 1985, for which he won an Emmy.

Woody was able to parlay this success into film, by working in support roles, White Men Can't Jump and Money Train with his first leading role with BUNRAKU Co-Star Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal. (1993)

Woody was then cast in Oliver Stone's controversial film Natural Born Killers which lead him to further work in edgy and compelling movies, such as The People vs Larry Flynt for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor. His latest film was with the celebrated directors Joel and Ethan Cohen in No Country For Old Men which won the 2007 Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director(s)

Woody supports many causes including the environment, peace around the world and campaigns for the legalization of marijuana and growing of hemp in the United States.

For more on the man who is often as intriguing as his roles, see Woody Harrelson's own site Voice Yourself - and say hello!
http://www.voiceyourself.com/

Ron Perlman is a cosummate actor who is able to convey a wide range of emotion - often underneath layers of prosthetic makeup!

Ron first came to wide public attention in the American television series Beauty and The Beast which aired from 1987-1989, earning him a Golden Globe for best performance by an actor in 1989 as the 'beast' named Vincent.

Other roles included feature film work - The Name of The Rose (1986) The Island of Dr. Moreau (1986) Enemy at the Gates (2001) but Ron is most known at present for his leading role in the science fiction fantasy film based off a comic book character Hellboy.

Once again, Ron Perlman captures an audience with his stature and deep voice, emoting through the heavy makeup and prosthetics needed to give him the appearance of the demonic hero. The sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden Army will be released this summer.

Ron also takes on voice acting for television animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman the Animated Series and Danny Phantom as well as popular video games Halo and Fallout.

for more on the amazing Mr. Perlman see his wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Perlman

Fernando Chien, stuntman and actor extraordinaire has had some lovely things to say about visiting Tokyo, on the way to principal photography for Bunraku in Romania. While he can no longer blog about the film's particulars, he has posted some photos of himself hanging out with actor Holland Diaz (also in the cast) in Bucharest. (and of note, an image of 'action team' practice which may include Josh Hartnett - difficult to tell)

Fernando Chien myspace gallery (public)
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=14083480&albumId=1605240

thanks lauraorganasolo for the info!

Wonder who is the incredible man helming this visual epic in Romania?

Get to Director Guy Moshe's website, where you can read about his thoughts on film, direction, as well as see trailers for his films.

http://www.guymoshe.com/main.html

Gackt  (co-starring with Josh Hartnett as the samurai Yoshi) shows off the result of makeup - a samurai's battle scarred hands
and apparently, the artists had a lot of natural scars to work with! His fans wish for him to protect these talented piano-playing, drum-pounding, guitar-and-shamisen strumming hands!

Gackt has been studying the martial arts for many years, and has had a dojo (a formal place for the study of martial arts) built in his home in Kyoto Japan, he has shown off his talents in the action film MOON CHILD, as well as motion capture for the games BUJINGAI and FINAL FANTASY CRISIS CORE, most recently the television historic drama FUURIN KAZAN.

Gackt will be featuring an image a day from the set at his site GACKT.COM

*future pictures from Gackt.com will be featured in Bunraku_Blog dependent upon their content relating to the film as a whole.


go to link in bunraku blog for Gackt.com
go to Japanese site (kanji on far left)
go down page to Gackt official community site (click)
click on Staff Blog at top

PLEASE READ ENTRIES IN THE COM BEFORE POSTING - we are getting multiple posts of the same articles.

Thank you very much.

Mods
Karadin
Midori
N12

Bunraku_Blog

I didn't think people would be that interested about the crew behind Bunraku so I didn't post these.
Anyway, there isn't much to find from the crew of the movie. Here are those that I had browsed ...

Neil D'Monte is the storyboard artist of Bunraku. He has a [ IMDb page ] as well as a [ personal website ]
His previous works include movies like 'Rambo', 'The Mummy' and but not limited to,
video games like 'Star Wars: Episode One - Then Phantom Menace'
You can check Neil's Resume on his personal website for all the previous movies/animation/etc he was a part of

In his [ Storyboard Gallery ] , you can find test drafts for the Picturesque Films' movie, Bunraku.
Note that it is not stated whether these are official or accepted drafts. I just posted this for casual reading/browsing.

Hello! karadin asked if I could put together a bio on Josh Hartnett. Truth be told, others could do this better than me, but I did go over to Wikipedia and am posting that info here. If any of you have anything to add, please do so! Or better yet, make a post of your own here.

Joshua Daniel Hartnett (born July 21, 1978) is an American actor.
( Read more... )
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Now that I've read this more closely, I can see that it hasn't been updated in a while. The article says his latest film was The Black Dahlia!

What's your favorite Josh film?

Since I've learned of the movie-title, I was wondering what this traditional japanese form of puppet theater looks like, so I looked for videos on youtube and came across a very good example of this beautiful art (at least in my opinion^^). Any additions and / or comments are most welcome!

While the description of the video is very informative, I'll also add a users comment who was correcting the facts stated in the description -for more info on the term, see also this entry:
http://community.livejournal.com/bunraku_blog/391.html

( Video-description )

So, without further ado:





 and here's the link for those who have trouble with embedded videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV938f46Wpg

Enjoy! :D

MOON CHILD (2002) is a supernatural action feature film which starred Japanese stars GACKT and HYDE and the Taiwanese-American superstar Wang LeeHom. I'm showcasing this because it gives us a taste of what Bunraku might feature. (English Subtitled)

A short setup for this scene - Sho played by Gackt (in ponytail and white jacket) and Kei played by Hyde (blonde hair red shirt) infiltrate a den of mobsters, along the way they meet Son played by Wang LeeHom who is out to revenge himself on the same gang. The trio join forces to defeat their collective enemy.

What follows is wacky acrobatics, some Matrix-style special effects (in fact the first used after that film was released) LOTS of gunplay - you should know Kei is a vampire - and their means of infiltrating the mob was to deliver drugged pizzas. AND, Gackt, Hyde and Wang LeeHom did their own stunts.

Enjoy!

If you are here to follow the adventures of your fave star in BUNRAKU, let other fans share the love, we are looking for people to write short bios and squee on their faves - and this includes the samurai-action-CGI film in general.

(There is a Josh Hartnett entry on the way)

In short, why are you here? Let us know!

Ron Perlman (of HELLBOY fame) and Woody Harrelson (NATURAL BORN KILLERS) can now be officially added to the cast list, as they are now in Romania with Josh Hartnett and GACKT-sama.

Woody is cast as a bartender, and its my guess that Ron Perlman might be the Evol Warlord. ;D


Thanks orthodox32   for the update!

Thanks to newport12 for the data!

Director and Screenplay by Guy Moshe

Cast

Josh Hartnett (the drifter)
GACKT (Yoshi)
Ron Perlman
Demi Moore (concubine)
Woody Harrelson
Kevin McKidd
Shun Sugata (Uncle)
Aaron Toney
Fernando Chien
Chris Brewster
Holland Diaz


Kevin McKidd confirms
that the project is under way...


And finally demi Moore is a bark away from confirmation too.

Josh is already there
http://luckynumberjosh.com/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Some info on the Director Guy Moshe can be found


Tidbits:

GACKT is pictured with co-star American actor JOSH HARTNETT in Romania where
shooting has already begun on BUNRAKU  - image from GACKT.COM

GACKT (full name CAMUI GACKT) is a Japanese musician, singer, composer and actor, who is wildly popular not only in his native land, but in large parts of Asia, and is no stranger to feature films. He co-produced, co-wrote and starred in the supernatural action film MOON CHILD, (2002)  with fellow rock gods HYDE (from Japan) and WANG LEE HOM (Taiwanese-American)

GACKT's film credits include writing, production and directing his concert DVD's, among these DIABOLOS, KAGEN NO TSUKI, as well as THE SIXTH DAY - SEVENTH NIGHT,  producing  and starring in a mini-series for the NHK , HERO'S HERO. 

GACKT has voiced characters (as well as scored and recorded hit songs for) NEW FIST OF THE NORTH STAR and GUNDAM Z  - LOVE IS THE PULSE OF THE STARS but may be known to most Western audiences as the voice and image of the character Genesis in the FINAL FANTASY games, CRISIS CORE and DIRGE OF CEREBUS, as well as BUJINGAI, where he added motion-capture work to his roster.

GACKT came to the attention of the director Guy Moshe of BUNRAKU through his starring role in the taiga (historic drama) FUURIN KAZAN, (2007) a year-long series produced by the NHK, National Television of Japan. In this series, GACKT portrayed the heroic warlord Uesugi Kenshin, winning him accolades, not only for his performance, but for the single RETURNER and the video for the same that were inspired by his role. Guy went to Japan personally to entice GACKT to join the project.

Find out more about GACKT by going to GACKT.COM

His 300+ songlist  is also available at ITUNES.

Josh Hartnett Will Enter A 'Papier-Mache World' For Upcoming Flick 'Bunraku'


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Bunraku is also known as Ningyō jōruri (人形浄瑠璃), a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684.

The most accurate term for the traditional puppet theater in Japan is ningyō jōruri. The combination of chanting and shamisen (Japanese guitar) playing is called jōruri and the Japanese word for puppet is ningyō.

Originally, the term "Bunraku" referred only to the particular theater established in 1872 in Osaka, which was named the Bunrakuza after its founder, a puppeteer named Uemura Bunrakken (or Bunrakuken), whose efforts revived the flagging fortunes of the traditional puppet theater in the mid-19th century.

The later prominence of the National Bunraku Theater of Japan, which is a descendant of the theater founded by Bunrakken, has popularized the name "Bunraku" in the twentieth century to the point that many Japanese use the term to refer generically to any traditional puppet theater in Japan.

However, almost all of the traditional puppet troupes currently in existence outside Osaka were founded and named long before the appearance of Uemura Bunrakukken and his theater, so they generally do not use the word to describe themselves. The exception is the few troupes that were organized by puppeteers from the Bunraku-za or its successors who left Osaka to found theaters in the provinces.

For more on this topic - Bunraku Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunraku