Strolling Invader
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Writer: Tomohiro Maekawa
2016 was a notable year for Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who premiered his excellent genre thriller Creepy in Berlin and his French language debut Dauguerrotype in TIFF’s Platform competition. A master of the offbeat and the eerie, Kurosawa turns next to something much different, his first adaptation of a stage play, from playwright Tomohiro Maekawa, Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha (roughly translating to I’m Going to Say I’m Going to Say Something—which is bound to be changed to something more succinct for the English language market). Strolling Invader will also be his first foray into sci-fi, as the film concerns Narumi (Masami Nagasawa of Koreeda’s Our Little Sister), who is experiencing difficulties in her marriage with Shinji (Ryuhei Matsuda of The Raid 2). But when he disappears and suddenly returns, his entire demeanor has changed and soon reveals he is an alien involved in a mission to invade Earth. At the same time, a family is murdered, leading an investigator (Hiroki Hasegawa) into the fold.
Cast: Masami Nagasawa, Ryûhei Matsuda, Hiroki Hasegawa
Production Co./Producer(s): Nikkatsu.
U.S. Distributor: Rights available.
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Release Date: Kurosawa’s sci-fi film (which sounds a bit like Invasion of the Body Snatchers) is currently in post-production with a release date in Japan scheduled for September, 2017. Such a distant release date suggests Kurosawa won’t be returning to Berlin, but the possibility of Cannes isn’t out of the question, as he was last programmed in Un Certain Regard in 2015 for Journey to the Shore (he won a Directing award for the title, and previously won awards from the sidebar in 2008 with Tokyo Sonata and 2001 with Pulse, but Kurosawa has only broken into the main competition once, in 2003 with Bright Future).
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