''New Rose Hotel'' is a 1998 American

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyber ...

erotic

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

co-written and directed by Abel Ferrara and starring

Christopher Walken Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Awar ...

, Willem Dafoe and

Asia Argento Asia Argento (; born Aria Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento; 20 September 1975) is an Italian actress and filmmaker. The daughter of filmmaker Dario Argento, she has had roles in several of her father's features and achieved mainstream success with a ...

. It is based on

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ...

's story of the same name.

Plot

Fox (Walken) and X (Dafoe) are Tokyo based corporate extraction specialists, half headhunters, half kidnappers, who specialize in helping R&D scientists relocate from corporations who would rather see them dead than working for their competitors. Fox is obsessed with one Hiroshi (

Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese visual artist, character designer, illustrator, a scenic designer for theatre and film, and a costume designer. He first came into prominence in the late 1960s working on the anime adaptation of ''Speed Racer''. Amano later became ...

) a paradigm-shattering super-genius who is currently working for Maas, the corporation who crippled him. To that end, Fox and X employ Sandii (Argento), a "

Shinjuku is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...

-girl", or small-time hustler/call girl, to help "persuade" Hiroshi to defect to Hosaka, another corporation to which Fox is somewhat warmer. Fox is responsible for brokering the deal with Hosaka, Sandii for getting Hiroshi to fall in love with her and defect to a Hosaka lab in

Marrakech Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

, and X is responsible for teaching Sandii how to make Hiroshi melt. Sandii disappears, Fox commits suicide, and X retreats to the safest place he knows, the New Rose Hotel, a derelict capsule hotel.

Cast

as Fox * Willem Dafoe as X *

as Sandii * Annabella Sciorra as Madame Rosa * John Lurie as Distinguished Man *Kimmy Suzuki as Asian Girl #1 *Miou as Asian Girl #2 *

as Hiroshi *

Gretchen Mol Gretchen Mol (born November 8, 1972) is an American actress and former model. She is known for her role as Gillian Darmody in the HBO series '' Boardwalk Empire'' (2010–2014). She also appeared in the films ''Rounders'' (1998), ''Celebrity'' ...

as Hiroshi's Wife * Ryuichi Sakamoto as Hosaka Executive

Production

Edward R. Pressman Edward Rambach Pressman (April 11, 1943 – January 17, 2023) was an American film producer and founder of the production company Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation. Pressman was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Lynn and J ...

had owned the film rights to ''

New Rose Hotel "New Rose Hotel" is a short story by William Gibson, first published in ''Omni (magazine), Omni'' in July 1984 and later included in his 1986 collection ''Burning Chrome (short story collection), Burning Chrome''. Plot The story is set in a futu ...

'' since the late 1980s. Before Ferrara got involved, Kathryn Bigelow was originally set to direct.

Zoë Tamerlis Lund Zoe (also ZOE, Zoë, Zoé, etc.) can refer to: *ζωή (''zōḗ''), the Ancient Greek word for "life" People * Zoe (name), including list of persons and fictional characters with the name Film and television * ''Zoe'' (film) * ZOE Broadcast ...

wrote the first draft of the script in 1996. According to Ferrara, both

Virginie Ledoyen Virginie Fernández (born 15 November 1976), known by her stage name Virginie Ledoyen (), is a French actress who has appeared in French, British and American films. Life and career Ledoyen was born in Aubervilliers, the daughter of Olga, a res ...

and

Chloë Sevigny Chloë Stevens Sevigny (, born November 18, 1974) is an American actress, model, filmmaker and fashion designer. Known for her work in independent films, often appearing in controversial or experimental features, Sevigny is the recipient of se ...

were considered for the role of Sandii. Ferrara also claims that

Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...

was considered for the role of Fox.Cryptekeeper 044 Abel Ferrara/New Rose Hotel
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Asia Argento made a documentary about Ferrara, titled ''Abel/Asia'' (1998), during the making of the film. Ferrara said he fired a lot of the crew members of the film; some of them were longtime collaborators of Ferrara's, such as film composer

Joe Delia Joseph Delia (born October 11, 1948) is an American singer, musician, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. He is the lead vocalist and keyboardist of the eponymous blues rock band Joe Delia & Thieves, after previously touring as a sess ...

Release

The film opened October 1, 1999 at the Cinema Village Triplex in New York City and grossed $5,147 in its opening weekend and $21,521 in total.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 19%, based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

References

External links

* * *
Abel Ferrara on the making of the film
on YouTube {{William Gibson 1990s science fiction thriller films 1998 films American science fiction thriller films Cyberpunk films American erotic thriller films Films based on short fiction Films directed by Abel Ferrara William Gibson 1990s science fiction films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films