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Captain Harlock, Night on the Galactic Railroad to Screen at Hawaii Int'l Film Fest
posted on by Rae First
The 33rd Annual Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) will screen Shinji Aramaki's Captain Harlock CG-animated film and the remastered version of the 1985 anime film Night on the Galactic Railroad. The festival will be held on October 10-20. The event's organizers have not yet announced the screening times for the films.
Captain Harlock remakes the classic anime Space Pirate Captain Harlock with Toei Animation's highest production budget ever at the equivalent of more than 30 million U.S. dollars. Shun Oguri and Haruma Miura star as the title pirate and the new character Yama, respectively. Writer Harutoshi Fukui (Mobile Suit Gundam UC novels, live-action Bōkoku no Aegis) reconstructed the story to reflect the themes of modern society, and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) is directing with the latest filmmaking technology in the style of a Hollywood production.
Kenji Miyazawa's 1934 novel Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru inspired the anime directed by Gisaburō Sugii. Central Park Media released the film on DVD in North America.
HIFF describes the film's story as follows:
Giovanni is a boy from a poor family, hoping to feed his sick mother by taking part time job after school. At the Night of Stars Festival, Giovanni sees a gigantic train approaching toward him on the top of the hill. In the next moment Giovanni finds himself on board and soon his best friend Campanella joins him. The fantastic journey to Milky Way has begun.
HIFF will also show several Japanese live-action films, including the adaptation of Rurouni Kenshin. Nobuhiro Watsuki's popular samurai manga Rurouni Kenshin was remade as a live-action feature film in Japan in August 2012. Other live-action Japanese films include: Sion Sono's Why Don't You Play in Hell?, Yuzo Asahara's A Tale of Samurai Cooking: A True Love Story, Shuichi Okita's A Story of Yonosuke, Junya Sakino's Sake-Bomb, Shin Togashi's Oshin, Takashi Innami's The God Of Ramen, and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Like Father, Like Son, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in May.
Last year's HIFF screened Wolf Children, the live-action Thermae Romae film, several Hayao Miyazaki films, Ultraman Saga, and the Korean animation The King of Pigs.
Image © 1985 Asahi Group/Herald Group/TAC.
