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Death Note's L Film to Screen in New York This Summer
posted on by Egan Loo
The New York Asian Film Festival has announced that the L change the WorLd spinoff to the manga-based Death Note films, Sukiyaki Western Django, Dainipponjin, and Always 1 & 2 will all be shown during the June 20-July 6 event in New York City. The festival has confirmed over two dozen films, but plans to add more films as well as special guests.
In L change the WorLd (pictured at right), director Hideo Nakata (Ringu franchise) recounts a case that the genius detective "L" (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) solves in 23 crucial days during the events of the two earlier Death Note films. Although it has characters from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's Death Note manga, the film tells its own original story. Viz Media is screening the first Death Note film across America this Tuesday and Wednesday.
Takashi Miike (Crows Zero, Ichi the Killer, MPD Psycho) offers his own unconventional interpretation of the American Western film genre in Sukiyaki Western Django with guest star Quentin Tarantino. Comedian Hitoshi Matumoto spoofs Japanese special-effects movies in Dainipponjin by recasting the archetypal skyscraper-tall superhero as a bored government worker who is tired of defending Japan. Takashi Yamazaki's Always: Sunset on Third Street- adaptation of a nostalgic post-war manga returns to the festival along with last year's sequel, Always 2: Sunset On Third Street (pictured at left).
