Mar 12 2009
Ryuhei Kitamura brings Baton back to Japan
Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura isn’t all that well-known outside of cult circles, though it’s not like the guy hasn’t tried to go mainstream. He directed the recent Clive Barker adaptation Midnight Meat Train, which was supposed to be his breakthrough in the Hollywood genre marketplace. But that effort ended up leaving him high and dry when distributor Lionsgate pulled the plug on it after some exec shake-ups and Midnight Meat Train was dumped onto a couple of screens in the hinterlands with nary a blip on the box-office radar.
The entire experience must’ve been frustrating for Kitamura, who helmed the fan-fave zombie swordplay flick Versus (2000), and sent him back to his native Japan to lick his wounds. I guess that homecoming got some new creative blood flowing, because Kitamura teamed up with acclaimed arthouse director Shunji Iwai, and the two — with Kitamura as director and Iwai as producer — collaborated on an animated feature.
Baton will be, like most Kitamura films, a sci-fi actioner, but the trailer seems to promise an interesting mix of rotoscoped visuals along with traditional 2D cel & computer-assisted work. Kitamura’s weaknesses as a live-action filmmaker — an over-reliance on flamboyant camerawork, a push for excess style over narrative substance (ironically, the stuff that makes him popular to some) — might actually work in his favor in this format, and the mash-up of animation techniques on display in Baton seems promising.
You can see the unsubtitled trailer via the film’s official website, which also offers Japanese-text story info and character designs.
