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‘Sanjuro’ (2007 remake) trailer on March 3rd

According to Variety, the first trailer for Yoshimitsu Morita’s Sanjuro will be playing during screenings of the Genghis Khan biopic ‘The Blue Wolf: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea’, which opens on March 3rd in Shochiku theaters in Japan. This, by the way, marks the first time that Shochiku runs a trailer for a Toho produced film.

And in case you didn’t realise, Sanjuro (“Tsubaki Sanjuro”) is of course a remake of Kurosawa’s 1962 original.

For a taste of what (not?) to expect, spend a moment at YouTube and watch again the trailer of the original Sanjuro. If I’m not mistaken, it (like most of Kurosawa’s trailers) was edited together by Kurosawa himself, and if the music, the raving titles and the one-liners fail to make you at least smile, then there is certainly something wrong with you!

Let’s hope that the new trailer will make its way online fairly soon, and that it will give us an idea about the direction that the remake has taken. One possible place to keep an eye on is Apple’s Japanese movie trailers page.

Discussion

28 February 2007

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Jeremy

Couldn’t agree more, if you fail to crack the smallest of smiles from the trailer, something is not right. Some directors most ingenious work has come from making their own trailers, Kurosawa and Hitchcock come to mind. Sadly the art of a trailer has been long lost, now its some guy in marketing that throws one together.

I am certainly curious about the remake, cant say I hold much hope, but I do wish for something worthy. All I know it better have the line “Tsubaki Sanjuro, well going on forty” 🙂

1 March 2007

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Ben

Actually there are many trailer cutting companies out there. They send the studios their cuts, bidding to be the one out of all the others. But yeah the art of the trailer has been pretty much lost.

The remake could be fun. Who knows. Hopefully the trailer will be up soon.

1 March 2007

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Vili Maunula

Ben, I didn’t know that trailer companies bid for film studio releases these days. That’s very interesting.

To be honest, all I know about the making of modern trailers comes from the recent feel-good comedy “The Holiday”, where Cameron Diaz played a trailer maker.

I may be naive, but I am actually hoping for a really good remake of Sanjuro. I will probably be disappointed, but we’ll see.

1 March 2007

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Jeremy

Was unaware of companies that make trailers for the studios to bid on, interesting.

I have a feeling like most remakes, they feel it most be done over-the-top to gain appeal. I know Sanjuro is more less a action film, but it maintained drama and intelligence. I fear the remake will be purely mind-numbing action with little regards to the actually story. Considering I know very little information about the film, or the people behind it, my worries dont have much merit. I also dont really know the mindset of Japanese production companies, but I know in America this film would most likely aim for the lower common denominator.

I just hope for a good movie, similar to Sanjuro. I dont think it would hold completely to the original as I think alot of elements would not work in a new film, unless copied scene to scene, like the remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Does anyone know how this is currently or planning to be marketed? Are they stating its a remake of a Kurosawa classic, or they simply marketing it as a new film? Have to wait for the trailer I assume to get an idea but with most remakes today, unless you just know, there is nothing to tell the common movie goer it is a remake from a older film, perhaps for the best.