Isao Yukisada

Source: Courtesy of Busan film festival

Isao Yukisada

Japan’s Isao Yukisada is adapting award-winning novel Revolver Lily as an action-adventure feature, which Toei Company is unveiling to buyers at the European Film Market.

Isao is best known internationally for titles including Go, A Day On The Planet, Parade and River’s Edge, all of which played in the Panorama strand of the Berlinale. Parade and River’s Edge both won the Fipresci prize at the festival in 2009 and 2018 respectively.

His latest takes place in 1924 and centres on Yuri, who killed 57 people as a spy before going underground as the madam of a small brothel. There, she encounters an orphan whose family was murdered and holds the key to finding a large sum of money reported missing by the Imperial Japanese Army. But with an army of soldiers after them, they must fight to survive.

The film is in post-production, with plans to release this year. The cast has yet to be revealed. Toei will show footage to buyers at the EFM in Berlin this week.

The EFM slate of the Tokyo-based outfit includes Immersion, a horror film from Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on/The Grudge) due for release this summer; The Forbidden Play, a horror from Hideo Nakata (Ring, Dark Water) due for release in September; and Yamaguchi Yudai’s upcoming action film One-Percenter.

Toei Company announced this week that its president and CEO Osamu Tezuka had died, aged 62. He had worked at Toei for nearly 40 years and was named president and CEO in June 2020.