Sushi Girl

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

About eighteen months ago, I did an interview about Sonny Chiba and his movie "Sushi Girl" . The move was supposed to be released a couple months later. And I never heard from it again. I thought I must have just missed the release.

I guess not. Sushi Girl Kickstarter

[Drunk Monk]

At least you met Sonny.

You ought to post this on KFM.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

So, Mr. Chiba came all the way from Japan and is in the movie for maybe two minutes top.

When low-budget film makers write their movies, the goal is to keep costs down by keeping locations down. The dream is to shoot it all in one location. I give Paranormal Experience as a prime example. That whole thing was shot in the director's house. Since, I went out to interview Mr. Chiba, I know this whole film was shot at the abandoned Fung Lum's restaurant at Universal studios. But even if you didn't have that information, you would guess imediately that they didn't move around much. The majority of the movie takes place in the in the main dining room with titular Sushi Girl lying on the dining table. It almost comes across as a stage play they are in that room so much. Or maybe just a bunch of soliloquies strung together in order to give all the actors there moments for scenery chewing.

It is an impressive cast. Tony Todd plays the lead. Mark Hamill plays the sadistic crow in his first film since well, Return of the Jedi. Micheal Beahn and James Fahey make appearances. Beahn just long enough to walk on screen and get shot. And Noah Hathaway, the kid from Neverending story, plays Fish.

Pretty much everyone is a caricature especially Hamill who they have adorned with a yellow fright wig and ill fitting glasses. He also plays the gay side of his character to the hilt. Jeff Fahey's time spent on screen is spent slavering over diamonds.

Sushi Girl is a film put together for a purpose. It's to give the director a chance to direct and for the actors to act their hearts out. The plotting is a convoluted mess that left me asking why the hell did they do that a lot.

Maybe I'm biased by actually being at the setting for the movie and knowing that the exit to the prison is across the parking lot from the restaurant. And the site of the big jewelry heist was downstairs at the loading dock for the restaurant. But even if I didn't know these things, I would still feel hemmed in by almost the entire film being around the Sushi table. And eating food off a naked women has never struck me as all that appetizing or erotic.

[cranefly]

I was fearing this could be totally stage-bound.

Out of curiosity, was there any actual nudity in the film? If not, it seems an incredible cop-out, considering the central premise of the movie. Death Race 3 is a prime example. The DVD made such a big deal about containing both the release version and an unrated version. I watched the unrated version. There was one very brief scene where a woman stands nude under leaky pipes in a prison cell, covering up. No one else was in the scene. I guess she wanted a totally closed set. Must have been a clause in her contract that she had to appear nude, and she gave it her very least and most boring shot. In contrast, the original Death Race 2000 had some generous and whacky sections of nudity, and that the release version.

A writer friend of mine recently opined that science fiction was getting downright puritanical -- certainly in the magazines. The editors are afraid of limiting their audience by one iota and are playing it ultra safe. Sigh. What's the world coming to?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

The girl was very attractive. They do have strategic sushi placement but at the end she gets up and parades around.

[Drunk Monk]

We've discussed it a little on KFM (see <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1181424#post1181424">http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/s ... ost1181424</a><!-- m --> for starters).

If Theatrical movies (and I'm not sure SG qualifies here but...) want the Asian market, there is no nudity.

All the nudity has moved to cable TV series.

[Drunk Monk]

...for sale at Target! It was even front-listed. Well, sort of. It was on top of one of the front DVD kiosks.

Didn't buy it though.

[Greg]

And yet I persist....

Did you know that Sonny Chiba has a son who is also an actor named Mackenyu? Mackenyu will be appearing in a film called. Knights of the Zodiac based on the Saint Seiya Anime.

[Drunk Monk]

Cool! I didn’t realize he was Sonny’s son. He was in this: http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...p?tid=6412