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Kenichi Matsuyama Stars in Live-Action Film of Chinyūki Comedy Manga
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
A live-action film adaptation of Gatarō Man's Chinyūki ~Tarō to Yukai na Nakama-tachi~ manga has been green-lit. The film will star Ken'ichi Matsuyama (live-action Death Note movies, Gantz, Bunny Drop), and is slated to premiere on February 27 at the Shinjuku Wald 9 theater and other theaters in Japan.
Yuudai Yamaguchi (Cromartie High: The Movie, Deadball) will direct the film. Atsushi Ōkawara, member of Japanese comedy trio Onigashima, and Shū Matsubara (Mr. Osomatsu) are writing the script. The film's staff revealed a visual featuring Matsuyama in costume.
Chinyūki spoofs adventure manga by retelling Journey to the West, the Chinese literary classic. In the story, a violent, trouble-making kabuki actor joins a traveling monk (who happens to be have been transformed into a monkey by a curse) on a colorful journey west to ancient southern Asia.
Gatarō Man serialized the manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990 to 1992, and Shueisha published six compiled book volumes for the manga. The series received a four-episode OVA adaptation in 2009. Gatarō Man launched a sequel titled Chinyūki 2 ~Yume no Inzei Seikatsu-hen~ in Weekly Shonen Jump 2009, and ended it in 2010. Shueisha published four compiled volumes of the manga.
Starting on December 4 at 11:59 p.m., Shueisha will make the first volume of the original manga available for free on its Shonen Jump+ web manga site and app for a limited time.
Source: Comic Natalie
