New People Travel Web Mag Posts Interview w/ Anime Director Katsuhito Ishii

San Francisco, CA, January 15, 2013 – NEW PEOPLE, Inc., the San Francisco-based entertainment company bringing the latest examples of Japanese popular culture to North American shores, opens 2013 with a brand new update to its NEW PEOPLE Travel web magazine, a free online travelogue that introduces colorful new sides of Japan depicted through the eyes of an eclectic collection of artists and creative visionaries that are recognized around the world.

The latest NEW PEOPLE Travel issue features an exclusive interview with Katsuhito Ishii, the famed creator of the anime racing film, Redline, the live-action movies, The Taste Of Tea and Funky Forest (both available from NEW PEOPLE Entertainment), and the anime portion of Kill Bill. His article is posted now for readers at www.newpeople.jp/travel/eng/ishii.html.

Katsuhito Ishii thrilled North American filmgoers with his first feature film, Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, which inspired Quentin Terantino to appoint Ishii to direct a vivid anime short depicting the brutal past of assassin O-Ren for his 2003 action film, Kill Bill. As a film director, Ishii delivered surrealistic off-beat tales in The Taste of Tea (2004) and Funky Forest (2005) and later went on to create a cruel yet beautiful hell-like world in the 2011 film, Smuggler.

For the 2010 anime feature, Redline, he teamed up with anime director Takeshi Koike at Mad House studios and broke the boundaries of speed with an imaginative galactic car racing adventure.

“Katsuhito Ishii talks about his life and career and offers rare insights into his creative process in his interview and we are honored to feature this acclaimed director as the latest J-Pop culture luminary on the NEW PEOPLE Travel web site,” says Seiji Horibuchi, the founder of NEW PEOPLE, Inc. “We invite readers to visit this unique free web magazine and take a closer look at the source of Ishii's fury and creative passion.”

Katsuhito Ishii was born on December 31st, 1966 in Niigata prefecture. After graduating from Musashino Art University in 1992, he began his career as a commercial director at Tohokushinsha Film Corporation. He debuted as a film director in 1995 with a short film called The Promise of August and continued to release renowned films such as Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl (1999), Party 7 (2000), The Taste of Tea (2004), My Darling of the Mountains (2008), and Smuggler (2011). In 2003, he took on the animation production for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. His latest film, Hello! Junichi, was made in 2012 in collaboration with children and young directors who are past attendees from creative workshops he has held.


The NEW PEOPLE Travel article archive features past stories by an array of intriguing Japanese artists and notable filmmakers including Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Sky Crawlers), Dice Tsutsumi (Art Director at Pixar, Toy Story 3), and Yoshitaka Amano (Artist, Final Fantasy, Gatchaman, Vampire Hunter D) among others.

NEW PEOPLE Travel is available at: www.newpeople.jp (select ENGLISH from the menu bar), or at: www.newpeople.jp/travel/eng/index.html. The site is updated every Monday. NEW PEOPLE Travel welcomes reader's requests regarding future stories to be featured on the site. Send requests to [email protected].


About NEW PEOPLE, Inc.
Based in San Francisco, California, NEW PEOPLE, Inc. (www.newpeopleworld.com) offers the latest films, art, fashion and retail brands from Japan through its unique entertainment destination as well as through licensing and distribution of selective Japanese films as well as various forms of entertainment. NEW PEOPLE Entertainment (www.newpeopleent.com), a film division of NEW PEOPLE, Inc. strives to offer the most entertaining motion pictures straight from the "Kingdom of Pop" for audiences of all ages, especially the manga and Anime Generation, in North America. Some titles include Death Note, Gantz, Kamikaze Girls, and The Taste of Tea