News

Japanese Film Festival Announces 2014 Dates and First Films for Australia and New Zealand

The news was announced via press-release on the 12th of August 2014. Multiple new venues were announced including the Mercury Cinema in Adelaide, Sydney's Event Cinemas Paramatta and the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Hoyts Millenium in Fremantle, Western Australia. And the Japanese Film Festival will be expanding to New Zealand with the Rialto Cinemas in Newmarket, Auckland to participate in the festival.

10 core feature films will be screened in each venue and Sydney and Melbourne will have an expanded program with over 45 additional films to be screened. The only films to be revealed at this time is the live-action Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, consisting of the previously released Rurouni Kenshin and the recently released in Japan, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and the upcoming Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends.

Sydney and Melbourne's additional program includes free screenings of JFF Classics and JFF Minis. The JFF Classics will consist of films from The Japan Foundation's 35mm collection and JFF Mini which will be films that have screened as part of the Japanese Film Festival's program in previous years. JFF Minis will additionally hold free screenings consisting of three select films in Townsville, Cairns, Hobart and Darwin. Broome will also receive this abridged screening for a small ticket price.

All main festival tickets will cost $18 for an Adult, $15 concession and $75 for a 5-film pass. We are seeking further clarification on New Zealand pricing.

• Adelaide: 10th – 12th & 17th – 19th October at the Mercury Cinema [13 Morphett St, Adelaide SA]
• Canberra: 15th – 19th October at the Capitol Cinema Manuka [6 Franklin Street, Forrest ACT]
• Sydney: Wed, Sat & Sun, 15th – 26th October. JFF classics at the Art Gallery of New South Wales [Art Gallery Rd, Sydney NSW]
• Brisbane: 22nd – 26th October at the Event Cinemas, Brisbane City Myer Centre [Level 3, Myer Centre, Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, QLD]
• Perth: 29th October – 2nd November at Hoyts Carousel [Westfield Carousel, 1382 Albany Highway, Carousel WA] & Hoyts Millennium [Collie St, Fremantle WA]
• Auckland: 6th – 12th November at the Rialto Cinemas, Newmarket [Rialto Centre 167 - 169 Broadway, Newmarket 1642, New Zealand]
• Sydney: 13th – 23rd November at Event Cinemas, George Street [505-525 George St, Sydney NSW] & Event Cinemas, Parramatta [159-175 Church St, Parramatta NSW]
• Melbourne: 27th November – 7th December JFF Classics at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image [Federation Square/Flinders St, Melbourne VIC]
• Melbourne: 27th November – 7th December Main festival at Hoyts Melbourne Central [Melbourne Central, Melbourne VIC]

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen / Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen) and Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen) are both sequels to 2012's Rurouni Kenshin live-action theatrical film. The two films have been filmed back to back and cover the Kyoto Arc of Nobuhiro Watsuki's original historical action manga. Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno was released on the 1st of August and then Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends will follow on the 13th of September 2014.

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno's opening weekend saw it take the #1 spot earning 592,178,780 yen (AUD$6,200,875) on 428 screens over the weekend for a total of 822,655,726 yen (AUD$8,615,613).

The sequels will feature the return of the following cast members:

• Takeru Satoh as Kenshin Himura
• Emi Takei as Kaoru Kamiya
• Munetaka Aoki as Sanosuke Sagara
• Yū Aoi as Megumi Takani
• Yōsuke Eguchi as Hajime Saitō

You can view images and further information here and the trailer for the sequels below;

Watsuki's manga ran from 1994 to 1999 in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine and sold over 58 million copies. The creator also drew the Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration retelling that launched in Jump Square magazine in May 2012 and ended last year. He is now planning a new Rurouni Kenshin spinoff manga about enemy characters.

An anime series adaptation aired in Japan from 1996 to 1998 and spawned several anime film and video projects. Viz Media publishes both manga in North America, while Media Blasters released the television anime. ADV Films released two later original video anime projects and a film on DVD, and Aniplex released these three titles on Blu-ray Disc. Sentai Filmworks released the two more recent video anime series on Blu-ray Disc and DVD, which also covered the Kyoto arc. In Australia Madman Entertainment have released the original television anime series, both OAVs and the anime film as seperate titles and in 2013 collected the entire set into one box release, they also released the most recent OAV last year. Madman Entertainment held theatrical screenings of the first Rurouni Kenshin live-action movie in 2012 and followed with a home video release in March 2013.

The live-action films were announced at Perth Supanova in June 2014.