Nikkei News has an article on The Last Princess, which as most readers should by now know is a remake of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress to be released in Japan on May 10.
The article quotes the film’s producer, Minami Ichikawa, as saying that the goal with The Last Princess was “to create a Hollywood-style action movie, following the spirit of ‘Star Wars‘”. This seems to confirm the observations many of us made earlier based on the trailers.
The film’s writer, Kazuki Nakashima, is meanwhile quoted as noting that he “tried not to use anything from the original movie except the basic outline of the story”. It remains to be seen what this means in reality.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the article, however, is the presence of information regarding other remakes that have so far been unknown to us. According to the article, Haruki Kadokawa who produced last year’s Tsubaki Sanjuro holds the rights to Ikiru, and is considering working on that as well. Hollywood, meanwhile, is supposedly interested in filming Drunken Angel, in addition to an Ikiru remake, which I take to be the Jim Sheridan one that has been talked about in the past.
Lame, you pay no tribute by making a copy of someones work. Of course tribute is not something on Hollywood’s mind.
I get the feeling both American and Japan will slowly rape all of Kurosawa’s work for the quick buck it can offer.