Interest
Sailor Suit & Machine Gun Film Dies at the Box Office
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Even the cuteness of Kanna Hashimoto and Hello Kitty couldn't save the live-action Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: Graduation film at the Japanese box office.
The film opened in 12th place on 238 screens. It garnered 27,746,139 yen (US$$243,965) over the weekend, or an average of 116,573 yen (US$1,025) per screen over two days—each theater had roughly 60-70 people seeing the movie the entire weekend. One viewer tweeted that only four or five other people were there for a screening.
The film stars Hashimoto as Izumi Hoshi, teenage head of the Medaka-gumi yakuza. Hoshi, despite her best efforts to lead a regular high school girl's life, gets pulled back into the violent yakuza lifestyle when one of her classmates mysteriously dies.
The original film opened in 1981 and starred famous Japanese actress and singer Hiroko Yakushimaru. It drew 4.7 billion yen (US$41.5 million) at the box office. Yakushimaru rose to fame after the role, winning the Japan Academy Prize in 1982. She also sang the theme song for the movie and it topped the Oricon Singles Chart for five weeks straight.
Films like Nobunaga Concerto: The Movie, Girls und Panzer: The Movie, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens filled more seats despite being in theaters for multiple months.
Source: Asagei Plus via Hachima Kikō
