Remember back in 2003, when the teaser trailer for Kill Bill (back then, it was just going to be one movie) played in your local multiplex, and it announced the long-awaited arrival of “The 4th Film by Quentin Tarantino?” I certainly remember that. It meant each of the movies by this filmmaker was special and worth counting. In a similar fashion, the new trailer for Blade of the Immortal, based on the popular manga by Hiroaki Samura, shouts its place in legendary director Takashi Miike‘s canon loud and clear: 100. This is Miike’s 100th film. And it looks bananas.
Beware: This is a RED BAND TRAILER and is NSFW.
Miike’s filmography started all the way back in 1991 when he began directing video features for Japan’s lucrative direct-to-VHS market. He is a directing machine, with a whopping 15 productions released between 2001 and 2002 alone. Though he’s eased up in recent years, he’s still averaging close to four movies per year. Astonishing. He’s known for some incredibly violent and controversial movies, including Audition, Ichi the Killer, and Sukiyaki Western Django. He can also make one hell of a samurai movie, as evidenced by his arguable masterpiece, 2010’s 13 Assassins.
For Blade of the Immortal–a manga about a sloppy but effective ronin named Manji who is responsible for the death of 100 other samurai, who has been gifted/cursed with immortality (meaning any time he’s dismembered, he’s repaired by “sacred bloodworms”), and who goes off to kill 1,000 evil men–Miike is the perfect choice. It’ll allow for the director’s trademark affinity for arterial blood spray (something that began with Akira Kurosawa, thank you very much) and what looks like a lot of amazing battle sequences.
Sign us up! Blade of the Immortal will premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas this September and then will hit cinemas everywhere November 3.
Images: Warner Bros/Magnet Releasing/Dark Horse
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He writes the weekly look at weird or obscure films in Schlock & Awe. Follow him on Twitter!
