Lady Snowblood ja Under the Flag of the Rising Sun ‑käsikirjoittaja Norio Osada teki uransa ainoan ohjaustyön kuvaamalla japanilaisen toimintaelokuvan Vietnamin sodan keskellä 1974-1975. Tuotantofirma meni konkkaan ennen elokuvan julkaisua, ja printti löydettiin ekaa kertaa vasta vuonna 2012. Elokuva kiersi festareita 2013 ja on nyt tulossa Japanissa (hyvin rajoitettuun) teatterilevitykseen – ainoastaan 40 vuotta myöhässä.
Toivottavasti ilmaantuu dvd jossain vaiheessa. Tässä voisi olla hyvä tärppi suomalaisillekin festareille.
“A story of love and violence takes place in Saigon in 1975, toward the end of the Vietnam War. A Japanese businessman accidentally kills a Vietnamese. He loses his status and wealthy position in Vietnam. A recently finished genre film in a unique setting. To escape from Vietnam, a businessman decides to head north on a military road under battle conditions with his lover Lanh and Taro, who is the half-blood son of an ex-Japanese soldier and a Vietnamese woman. On the road towards liberation or total catastrophe?”
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdBi2cE06_k
“As a scriptwriter working with Fukasaku Kinji in the 1970s and 1980s, Norio chose a Vietnamese production company for his feature debut. The film was shot on locations all over Vietnam under real combat conditions during the final stage of the Vietnam War, between December 1974 and April 1975.
Intiated as a cheap B-class action film, a lack of financial resources and the bankruptcy of the production company prevented it from being finished and shown to the public. Many years later, the film was rediscovered at the National Film Center of Japan. After overcoming several difficulties, the film was completed in the Autumn of 2012.”
• http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/films/number-10-blues-goodbye-saigon/
Traileri:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdBi2cE06_k