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Madman Entertainment Acquires The Wind Rises
posted on by Jon Hayward
The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu)
A semi-biographical film following the (fictional) life of Jiro Horikoshi, The Wind Rises follows Jiro as he dreams of flying beautiful aeroplanes. However due to his eyesight Jiro cannot fly, so after inspirational dreams of famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni he turns to designing and creating airplanes. The film covers Jiro's childhood through to his creation of the Mitsubishi A5M (the predecessor to the A6M Zero fighter plane for WWII) and the historical events in-between including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, The Great Depression and Japan's decent into war.
The Wind Rises is based on Hayao Miyazaki's 2009 mini-manga of the same name itself based on Tatsuo Hori's 1938 novel, The Wind Has Risen. Miyazaki is credited with both directing and creating the screenplay at Studio Ghibli with animation direction and character design by Kitaro Kousaka (Whisper of the Heart, Spirited Away) and music by frequent Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi.
The Japanese voice cast includes Evangelion director Hideaki Anno as main character Jirō Horikoshi alongside former idol Miori Takimoto as Naoko Satōmi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masahiko Nishimura, Steve Alpert, Morio Kazama, Keiko Takeshita, Mirai Jita, Jun Kunimura, Shinobu Ōtake, and Mansai Nomura. Studio Ghibli International and producer Frank Marshall (From Up On Poppy Hill, The Secret World of Arrietty, Ponyo) will be creating the English dub. Disney will be distributing the film in North America and France with European distribution and sales company Wild Bunch to be teaming up with Studio Ghibli to release The Wind Rises in Europe.
The Wind Rises has also been at the top of Japan's box office for seven weekends taking in over ¥8.78 billion to date ($96 million AUD).
This will be Hayao Miyazaki's last film as Director due to his recently announced retirement.
Madman Entertainment have not yet stated a release date but plan to release the film to Australian and New Zealand cinemas in 2014. You can view Madman's press release here.
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