Wicked City (film)
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| Wicked City (Yoju Toshi) | |
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| Directed by | Yoshiaki Kawajiri |
| Produced by | Kenji Kurata, Makoto Seya |
| Written by | Kisei Choo (screenplay), Hideyuki Kikuchi (novel) |
| Starring | Tetsuro Sagawa as Taki (Japanese), Ichirō Nagai as Giuseppe Mayart (Japanese), Greg Snegoff as Taki (American), Mike Reynolds as Giuseppe Mayart (American), Stuart Miller as Taki (British), George Littlewood as Giuseppe Mayart (British) |
| Music by | Hitomi Tooyama |
| Distributed by | Urban Vision (American), Japan Home Video (Japanese), Manga Entertainment (British) |
| Release date(s) | 19 April 1987 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Language | Japanese |
| IMDb profile | |
Wicked City (妖獣都市 Yōjū Toshi) is a Japanese gothic horror noir anime that is based on the novel series by Hideyuki Kikuchi.
The film was released in Japan on 19 April 1987 by Japan Home Video (JHV) and received a western release dubbed by Streamline Pictures under the name Wicked City or Supernatural Beast City on the 20 August 1993. After Streamline Pictures lost the distribution rights, it was licensed and distributed by Urban Vision. The film is directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who later went on to direct Ninja Scroll (Jūbei Ninpūchō) and one episode of The Animatrix. The film featured a soundtrack by Hitomi Tooyama.
The narrative is set towards the end of the 20th century and explores the idea that the human world secretly coexists with the demon world with a secret police force known as the Black Guard protecting the boundary. The film is a sexual thriller and uses sex both as a weapon (sex with monsters, rape, oral sodomy and torture) and as a form of romantic expression. The film portrays demons as beings that can walk in human form and seduce their prey much like a Siren instilling castration anxiety in the viewer through use of demons with vagina dentata. The film portrays demons as fleshy beastials sporting tentacles in a way that has manifested itself in other works ever since, enforced further by Yoshiaki Kawajiri character designs in Makaitoshi Shinjuku in 1988. USA comic book creator Todd McFarlane has often cited many designs in his famed comic book Spawn have been inspired by Yōjū Toshi.
The theatrical release runs for 90 minutes, but in certain countries a censored version has been released. The western tag line is "When desire turns deadly, there's no place left to hide..."
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[edit] Background
The existence of the 'Black World' is known to very few people. For centuries, a pact between the two has been observed to maintain peace, and terms must be negotiated and renewed every few hundred years to continue relative harmony. This time around, there is a militant faction called The Radicals that will stop at nothing to prevent the signing of a new treaty. Two agents of the Black Guards are charged with insuring the success of the treaty. Taki Renzaburo is an electronics salesman by day and a black guard agent by night. His partner Makie who masquerades as a model is from the black world and their mission is to protect a man named Giuseppi Mayart, a 200 year-old man whose presence at the peace treaty signing is critical. The radicals wish to kill Mayart to upset the peace between both worlds.
Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri had just completed his work directing the very dark and gritty The Running Man and was asked to direct a 35 minute short on Hideyuki Kikuchis novel. Kawajiri completed the short and after Japan Home Video saw a screening of it, they wished him to make it feature length. The producers Kenji Kurata and Makoto Seya expressed their opinion that the director shouldn’t extend it unless he wanted to. Kawajiri was such a fan of the world, he saw it as an opportunity to explore more characterisation and created more animation for the start, the middle and the end. The project was completed in under a year.
[edit] Quotes
- "Its body is armored in iron and concrete. Its mind is wrapped in computers and high technology. This is the city and the time we are living in. But most people are ignoring the unexplainable or mysterious. Those things that we can't figure out through ordinary logic. Around these ordinary people, following common rules... all the while seeking out strong desires and pleasures... and hanging on to a little happiness... there exists a vast and fearful world of darkness beyond our time and space. I'm afraid I know about that". (Renzaburo Taki)
- "That night, I was happy. Like I fell into rapture. She was the girl, that I liked, at the bar I frequently visited for 3 months. Finally, she asked me to come to her place. This was a surprise. (...) I'm so attracted. This woman has a devil inside. She completely changed from how she was at the bar. (Renzaburo Taki)
- "I'm Renzaburo Taki, 25 years old. Height 180 cm, weight 65 kg, blood type AB. Official job is a salesman of an electronics company. Monthly salary is 230,000 yen. Single. And you? Don't forget to include your measurements, too". (Renzaburo Taki)
- "What's the big deal? She's just a woman of the demon world. Who knows what kind of real form she has under that beauty. You already must know what happens to the people who sleep with them. They all became zombies after their life energies were sucked out. Do you know why so many people still want to have sex with them? Because of how it feels. People feel such incredible ecstasy, it can't even compare with human sex".(Giuseppe Mayart)
[edit] 1992 Adaptation
A live action version (Yao shou du shi) was made in 1992 released by Golden Princess Film Production Ltd. The film was directed by Tai Kit Mak, produced by Hark Tsui and starred Jacky Cheung, Leon Lai, Yuen Woo-ping, Roy Cheung, and Michelle Reis.
The story took place in Hong Kong in a conflict between worlds of Humans and "Rapters". Special polices in the city are investigating on a mysterious drug named "happiness". Taki, one of the polices, meets his old lover Windy, who is a rapter and now a mistress of a powerful old rapter named Daishu. Taki and other special polices track down and fight Daishu, but later find that he hope to coexist with human. The son of Daishu, Shudo, is the mastermind. In the end Shudo is defeated, but Daishu and Taki's friends die, too. Windy leaves alone.
[edit] Live Action
The magazine "Variety" in April 2006 mentioned that there will be a live action Wicked City is in creation by a German production company called Stallion Film. Directed and co-produced by Mark Dippe, (director of Spawn: The Movie), he with the help of Johnny Hartmann will be doing this movie project. Its budget is between $50 to $60 million but no cast has been announced.
