According to Cinema Today, it has been confirmed that “Ringu” director Nakata Hideo is working on a new horror film titled “Kuroyuri Danchi,” which will star former AKB48 member Maeda Atsuko along with actor Narimiya Hiroki.
The fictional setting for the film is a dilapidated housing complex known as Kuroyuri Danchi, where a series of mysterious deaths has continued over the past 13 years. Maeda plays a young woman named Asuka who moves into the complex without knowing its history, and she finds herself distressed by eerie sounds coming from neighboring apartments. One day, after discovering an elderly neighbor who has died alone in another apartment, frightening things begin happening all around her. Suspecting that the dead neighbor may be trying to communicate something, she tries to figure it out with the help of a man named Sasahara (played by Narimiya), who specializes in dealing with possessions of the deceased.
Nakata, whose last true horror film was “Kaidan” in 2007, also wrote the original screenplay for the movie. Given the nature of the character’s solitary death, Nakata is said to be concentrating on a theme of “solitude,” which is a problem for a lot of people in modern society. The director also mentioned that he had received a fan letter from an American boy which said that he liked Nakata’s “quiet horror” films, but “Kuroyuri Danchi” will not just be “quiet” – Nakata is definitely turning up the pace and tension of the horror element.
“Kuroyuri Danchi” is scheduled for theatrical release in May 2013.
TOKYO – It’s hard to judge if Hideo Nakata directing Atsuko Maeda is a match made in heaven or hell. Either way, admires of either are likely to be divided by horror film “The Complex,” set to open across Japan on May 18 2013.
At its Asian premiere, Nakata, 51 – best known to western audiences for shock-horror movies “The Ring” (1998) and “Dark Water (2002) – exacerbated the multiple contradictions of the movie as he danced jovially besides Maeda and co-star Hiroki Narimiya.
“I’ve been working 20 years already, so people sometimes call me a master,” he told the audience. “But I feel like I am young freshman, still learning, and I try to insert many contrasting techniques into horror.”
Maeda, 21, the most prominent member of J-Pop girl-group phenomenon AKB48 (though she officially went solo in August 2012), comes from a seemingly polar opposite ‘cute’ side of modern Japanese culture.
Thanks to endorsements galore, Maeda’s is the most iconic face of hundreds of girl-next-door types selected specifically for their distinct lack of talent to sing and perform as coquettish schoolgirls. Dozens of these schoolgirl groups perform in front of a growing social phenomenon known as the ‘otaku’ (obsessive fans that are known for their unsocial and sometimes disturbing fetishes), of which AKB48 itself is just the tip of the iceberg.
Japanese horror films have a history of using cute and innocent schoolgirls as the central device to shock audiences though, including Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” (2000). And in “The Complex,” the surprise casting of Maeda as Asuka is likely to divide fans of the modern icon of ‘kawaii’ culture, some reveling in her on-screen comeuppance while others may be revolted to see their idol looking positively shabby.
Actor Hiroki Narimiya, 30, who has performed on stage and screen for over ten years in works such as Mataichiro Yamamoto’s “Azumi” (2003), and Takashi Miike’s “Ace Attorney” (2012), told the audience that “Maeda looks unhealthy in the film” as she is traumatized inside an old Japanese apartment complex, and he was “genuinely worried for her.”
Maeda isn’t the only one out on a limb. Nakata has struggled to replicate the global success of his early works, and while some will find it amusing to see him put a usually prim-and-perfect pop star through on-screen torture, others may cry sell-out. Perhaps the attention is precisely the point.
Praising Maeda for her dedication, Nakata said; “usually I record five takes per scene, and for most actors the first is usually the best. But with Atsuko Maeda, she had such a consistency and determination that the fifth take could be the best. She concentrates very hard.”
Maeda responded; “Even though this is a horror movie, the feelings of the character of Asuka are very well-developed, so she many things in her mind that I wanted to express.”
An underconfident looking Maeda who frequently faced the floor, alleviated her owns fans concerns for her health by assuring them that “even though it’s a horror movie, the mood on set was always cheerful and the crew were constantly joking around.”
A merry Nakata explained that for him, horror and comedy have much more in common than one might expect. “The horror genre is similar to comedy in that for a joke to work, you need the audience’s sensitivity for the characters first, to capture their heart or attention so that they are involved. Then you can deliver a joke, or shock them.”
“The Complex” is set in a decades-old dilapidated apartment block, resembling many constructed during Japan’s rapid economic growth phase from the 1960s to 1980s. When single girl Asuka moves in, she finds herself feeling lonely and fearful of who her neighbors might be, as Sasahara (Narimiya) seeks to reassure her.
The secrets of “The Complex” though, lie with the entrance of an unsettling-looking young boy named Minoru.
“This film is really about loneliness. Everybody feels lonely sometimes, but humans can’t live alone,” said Narimiya.
Nakata then revealed the very real social issue he aimed to address in the movie. “Nowadays in contemporary Japan, we have a problem of a low birthrate and many elderly people. We lost our sense of communication so much due to this dynamic, that we don’t know who are neighbors are anymore.”