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I Am a Hero Live-Action Film's 2nd Teaser Streamed
posted on by Karen Ressler
TOHO began streaming a second 30-second teaser for the live-action film of Kengo Hanazawa's best-selling zombie manga I am a Hero on Friday.
TOHO previously streamed a trailer for the I am a Hero live-action film in December. The film will open in Japan on April 23. A live-action prequel drama series titled I am a Hero: Hajimari no Hi (I am a Hero: The Day it Began) will premiere on Docomo's dTV streaming service on April 9, 14 days before the film's opening.
The film premiered at the 48th Sitges Film Festival in Catalonia, Spain last October, and it won the Grand Audience Award and Award for Best Special Effects.
Shinsuke Satō (Gantz, Library War, Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, Princess Blade) directed the "A-grade survival panic horror" movie. Akiko Nogi (Library War, Sayonara, Robinson Crusoe) wrote the screenplay, and VFX and makeup expert Makoto Kamiya (Gantz, Cutie Honey, Resident Evil: Degeneration, Resident Evil: Damnation) was in charge of special effects. Principal photography began in early June 2014.
In the original manga, Hideo Suzuki (played by Yō Ōizumi in the live-action film) is an aspiring manga creator who once struggled with discontent with his assistant artist job and his relationship with his girlfriend — until people started turning into undead "ZQN" creatures overnight. After he is attacked by his ZQN virus-infected girlfriend "Tekko," Hideo flees the overrun Tokyo metropolis with the shotgun he happens to own as a hobby. He travels with Hiromi (played by Kasumi Arimura), a high school girl whom he meets by chance, and they face the desperate situation with the help of a nurse named Yabu (played by Masami Nagasawa) at a shopping mall.
Hanazawa launched the manga in Shogakukan's Big Comic Spirits magazine in 2009, and its compiled book volumes have over 4 million copies in print. Dark Horse Comics will release the manga in North America starting in April. Yuuki Honda (Tokyo Yamimushi) launched an Osaka-based spinoff manga last June, which ended last December. The main manga is also approaching its conclusion.
