Archives For shunji iwai vampire

I just watched Shunji Iwai’s Vampire – FINALLY! – sadly, it didn’t give me any important feels about it despite the LONG wait. Not even Yu-chan’s performance, though I really think having to speak English hindered her usual scene-stealing capabilities. It also seemed Iwai was slacking around with his script, and he just dropped Mina’s role for Aoi there if she wanted it at the last minute because she’s just so damn relaxed in it.

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I have no feelings towards Kevin Zegers, and Iwai only used all her actresses as passersby so even Keisha Castle-Hughes (only in the beginning), Kristin Kreuk (all the way into the end) and Katharine Isabelle (somewhere in the middle for a few minuets) fans are going to be disappointed. Rachael Leigh Cook has a bigger part in the film, but plays not a very compelling character, which I think would have been a better fit for Isabelle.

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I know that except from my 5th Year Anniversary Wiki Update [1], things have been usually pretty quiet on the Yu front. It usually is pretty slow during these months, as Yu’s activities tend to pick up by August all the way into December, January and February.

Though my fandomess (that’s not even a word) has diminished, Yu still has a special place in my fangirly heart. I would totally be giddy with a new movie, and specially with starring on a new jdrama (as a lead, not guest). I’m not as an ardent fan of Yu’s passion for shaved ice, so those books are missing from my collection, as well as her first few photobooks. But as you can see, I’ve kept on supporting her any way I could.

I’m still waiting to catch Vampire. The Shunji Iwai Festival team on Weibo told me it would be “soon” when I get to catch it on a proper online channel, so I’m crossing my fingers.

I do miss that doki doki feeling I used to get when this fandom started. Maybe I’ll re-watch Osen to recapture that feeling. LOL

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An advanced screening of Yoji Yamada’s Tokyo Kazoku [1] was held prepping for its imminent release on January 19th.

Time flies by. It seems like yesterday when they finally announced they were shooting the movie.

In the movie front… no signs of Vampire on DVD.

Soooooo, story of my life. The Shunji Iwai Vampire interview was supposed to begin at 9pm, which means I decided to stay up all the way into 7am my timezone to catch the interview… the problem was I fell asleep well into the 30min. mark with Iwai-san arriving  just a few minutes later.

So I missed the whole thing. LOL

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I really don’t know how I missed this trailer.

I mean, it’s got Yu-chan’s line in ENGLISH… broken English, but HER LINE IN ENGLISH. And it’s nearly a year-old video post, and I never knew. And NOBODY told me. T_T That’s the most depressing part.

I had talked with people who had seen Vampire already, and they’ve told me that Yu-chan’s part is small… but memorable (but maybe they’re a little bit biased). In any case, I’m not guiding myself by the reviews that came from Sundance because most of them… they were expecting some other movie about vampires.

I’m posting this today, because Vampire just got a Japanese release date — September 15th this year — but i can’t find an upload for that version on YouTube, so here’s a link to Wildgrounds.
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