, also known as ''The Legend of Zipang'' is a 1990 Japanese

tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, ''tokusatsu'' mainly refers to science fiction film, science fiction, War fi ...

fantasy film Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually Magic (paranormal), magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The Film genre, genre is considered a form of speculative fic ...

directed by

Kaizo Hayashi is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut with '' To Sleep so as to Dream'' (1986). He is best known for his neo-noir '' Maiku Hama'' trilogy, ''The Most Terrible Time in My Life'' (1994), '' Stairway to the Dist ...

. The film stars

Masahiro Takashima is a Japanese actor and singer. Early life Takashima comes from a family of actors, including his father Tadao Takashima, his mother Hanayo Sumi, and his younger brother Masanobu Takashima. Career Acting Takashima debuted in the 1987 film '' ...

as Jigoku Gokuraku Maru.

Cast

as Jigoku Gokuraku Maru *

Narumi Yasuda is a Japanese actress. She won the award for best actress at the 8th Yokohama Film Festival for '' Inujini seshi mono'', '' Minami e Hashire, Umi no Michi o!'' and '' Sorobanzuku''. She also won the award for best actress at the 13th Hochi Film ...

as Yuri the Pistol *

Shirō Sano is a Japanese actor. Career Born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Sano lived in Tokyo and Matsue, Shimane as a child, before returning to Tokyo to enter art school. He joined several theatrical troupes, including Jurō Kara's Jōkyō Gekijō. He had h ...

as Bunshichi the Puppetmaster * Kenya Sawada as Tobatsu *

Mikio Narita was a Japanese actor. He was most famous for playing villains, and often worked with Kinji Fukasaku. Narita graduated from Haiyuza Theatre Company acting school and joined Daiei Film. His career as a screen actor started in 1963. His film debut ...

as Hayashi Razan *

Mikijirō Hira was a Japanese actor. Starting as a stage actor in the 1950s, he also worked in film and television and was active until the time of his death. From the 1970s he starred in several of Yukio Ninagawa's productions, including an acclaimed role a ...

as King of Zipang * Haruko Wanibuchi as Queen * Takuya Wada as Ashura * Jian Xin as Tattoo Man

Release

Theatrical

''Zipang'' was released in Japan on January 27, 1990 where it was distributed by

Toho is a Japanese entertainment company that primarily engages in producing and distributing films and exhibiting stage plays. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. ...

. The film was released at the

Stockholm International Film Festival The Stockholm International Film Festival () is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year since then during the second half of November, and focuses on emerging and early career fil ...

in November 1990 in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Home media

Video TBS released the film on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

in 1990 and Art Port released the film on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

in 2001.

Remarks

In scenes that transcend time and space, a time-consuming expression method is adopted in which photographs are copied and modified, and effects such as zooming and rotation are added to take each photograph one-by-one.

Reception

''The Austin Chronicle'' said "if, however, you're looking to switch off your brain and simply have a good time, then don't miss out on this kinetic roller coaster of a movie... it's a real hoot."

Other media

The video game ''Jigoku Gokuraku Maru'' (地獄極楽丸) for the

Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

is a tie-in for this movie. It was retitled '' Kabuki: Quantum Fighter'' for its Western release, and the plot was changed to remove the connection to the movie.

References

External links

* * {{Letterboxd title, id=the-legend-of-zipang 1990 films Japanese fantasy films Japanese science fiction films Toho tokusatsu films 1990s Japanese films 1990 science fiction films