Eureka recently announced their slate of newest acquisitions and it included two Japanese fims – Tag (2015), Sion Sono’s carnival of chaos as Japanese schoolgirls take part in epic death-games, and Re:Born (2017), the recent return of action-man Tak Sakaguchi (Versus, Deadball) where he plays an ex-special-forces soldier fighting for his loved ones. Re:Born will have its UK premiere on September 16th as the main film of The Fighting Spirit Festival which takes place at the Boleyn Theatre in London.
The Fighting Spirits Festival is a relatively new event which is in its second year of operation. It celebrates and promotes Martial Arts Culture and those who have made martial arts as a careerthrough films and demonstrations. The films screened range from feature-length titles to shorts, classics like Shaw Brothers titles like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) to more modern takes such as Herman Yau’s 2013 movie Ip Man. It has support from the Chinese Visual Festival, East Winds Film Festival, Arrow Video and Eureka so it’s guaranteed a lot of great films. Show some love for East Asian movies and take a look at the festival.
It’s pretty exciting to see a Japanese martial arts movie take the top spot, especially with Tak Sakaguchi in the lead role which is what drew my attention to it. Here are more details:
Re: Born 
RE:BORN リボーン 「RE:BORN Ribo-n」
Running Time: 115 mins.
Director: Yuji Shimomura
Writer: Benio Saeki (Screenplay),
Starring: Tak Sakaguchi, Yura Kondo, Issei Ishida, Mariko Shinoda, Takumi Saito, Hitomi Hasebe, Masaya Kato, Akio Otsuka, Makoto Sakaguchi, Kenta, Rina Takeda,
RE:BORN stars Tak Sakaguchi. Even if the films he is in are gore-fests where the main highlight are the special-effects and humour, he tends to make an impact because he can act and he has the charisma and martial arts skills to make a good action hero. He has been making horror and action movies for a while as an action director (he worked on High & Low: The Red Rain (2016) and Sion Sono’s movies Tag and Love Exposure, Himizu) and an actor (Osaka Snake Road: Snake of Violence, Tokyo Gore Police, Alive, Shinobi: Heart Under Blade and Meatball Machine: Kodoku). He was fantastic in Sion Sono’s (yes, him again,) Why Don’t You Play in Hell? which, if you had to watch one performance, is the one I’d recommend.
He is working with another prolific action director named Yuji Shinomura (Library Wars, Strayers Chronicle, I Am a Hero) and the fight choreographer Yoshitaka Inagawa, a former close combat instructor for U.S. Special Forces and other international commando units. The film showcases Inugawa’s Zero Range Combat System – a technique focused around extremely quick and efficient movements at close range.
The action in the trailer looks breathtaking and Tak Sakaguchi looks focused and cool in the lead role. Hardcore action films like this seem to be in short-supply from Japan and so it’s great seeing this on the big screen in the UK!!!
Synopsis: Toshiro (Tak Sakaguchi) is a seemingly normal guy who runs a convenience store in a small town. He lives a quiet life with his young niece Sachi but in the past, Toshiro was known as “Ghost” and was a lethal member for a special covert forces unit. He thought he had left that life behind but when his ex-comrades kidnap Sachi, he has to be reborn as a beast to get her back!
