Copyright 1997 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Guardian
April 14, 1997
SECTION: THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. T10
LENGTH: 2240 words
HEADLINE: ARTS: MANGA GOES TO HOLLYWOOD;
Once upon a time American film directors drew inspiration from Marvel, DC
Thomson and 2000AD. Now they're turning to the doe-eyed, shoulder-padded
heroes and heroines of Japanese comic books. David Hughes and Jonathan Clements
report.
BYLINE: David Hughes And Jonathan Clements
BODY:
It would appear to be just another action film, unleashed upon a weary and
overcrowded market. Yet Crying Freeman, the story of an undercover assassin's
attempt to free himself from his Chinese mafia masters, may herald a new trend
in American cinema. What separates it from other films of its ilk is that
it is based on a Japanese manga comic, and it was made by westerners.
Hollywood has long plundered comic books for source material - Superman,
Batman, Judge Dredd, Tank Girl, the forthcoming Spiderman, to name a few. The
simple, heroic plotlines and easily identifiable characters slip well into the
action movie genre and provide lucrative franchising and merchandising
opportunities. Yet as the well-spring of western comics dries up, Hollywood
action movies have become more technological, more darkly humorous, more
violent - in short, more Japanese. And many directors are now turning to manga as a
near-untapped source of ready -storyboarded scripts.
There are a number of manga-inspired western projects in the pipeline.
Hollywood gossip links Richard Donner, the director of Lethal Weapon, with the
movie version of the Japanese-inspired children's series Speed Racer, and both
Francis Ford Coppola and Tim Burton have tried to get the go-ahead for film
versions of Kazuo Koike's Mai The Psychic Girl, with Winona Ryder tipped
to play the eponymous heroine. And after Terry Gilliam and Twister director Jan De
Bont turned down the chance to remake Godzilla, the task went to Independence Day's
director, Roland Emmerich.
But perhaps manga's best-known Hollywood exponent is James Cameron,
director of the Terminator films. In 1996 it was revealed that he had optioned the
rights to Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasite, a manga unknown in the West but which had won a
major award in Japan. The comic book, published in the late eighties, tells of
a Japan invaded by vicious, bodysnatching aliens, and is notable for its
shapeshifting assassins who turn their bodies into fluidic, metallic weapons -
much as the assassin in 1991's Terminator 2 shapeshifted.
There is no question of plagiarism on Cameron's part regarding Parasite.
Nevertheless, his purchasing of the rights is an astute buy. Hollywood lawyers
talk of the problems of 'simultaneous creation', and Babylon 5 producer J
Michael Straczynski has outlined the problem for aspiring writers, suggesting
that originality is a difficult concept to define: 'The odds are that somebody
out there has had the same idea, and you can only hope and pray that this
person has never sent your studio an unsolicited manuscript or published his story in
some little magazine somewhere, or you're going to be on the receiving end
of a subpoena.' Cameron had already faced a successful plagiarism suit from the
writer Harlan Ellison over coincidences of plotting in the first Terminator
film, and it seems that buying up even remotely similar works is a far cheaper
option than risking another legal battle.
Meanwhile, Disney's Buena Vista subsidiary has become the western
distributor for Hayao Miyazaki, a leading manga creator whose animated films
consistently out-perform Disney at the Japanese box -office. After some
wrangling, Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli and Buena Vista struck a deal that was to
everybody's liking: Asian distribution rights remained with the Japanese while
Buena Vista assumed the responsibility of bringing Studio Ghibli's films
to the rest of the world. The first release under the new agreement is Studio
Ghibli's latest production, Mononoke Hime, which is to be dubbed into English and
titled Princess Ghost.
Disney are being typically smart in pursuing the rights to such high
quality products. In Japan, the third largest box-office territory in the world, video
sales of Toy Story and Pocahontas were eclipsed by those of Evangelion, a
home-grown, fervently anti-Christian tale of invading angels from outer space.
But one Disney film has done rather well in Japan: The Lion King. This is
perhaps because it has much in common with Osamu Tezuka's highly -regarded
1966 television series Jungle Emperor, screened in the US as Kimba The White Lion.
The Disney company has vehemently denied that The Lion King was influenced
by Tezuka's story. Yet some of Disney's animators, and even Matthew Broderick
(who provided the voice of Disney's Simba) said that they were aware of the
original series from their own childhood. Helen McCarthy, editor of the
British magazine Manga Mania, has noted a number of similarities between the two
works, pointing out that '. . . both stories feature mandrill baboons as spiritual
advisers to the king, hyena sidekicks to the usurper and poetic image
sequences in which the image of a lion appears in the clouds'. The stampede sequence in
The Lion King mirrors one in the Kimba series, in which Kimba also fails
to stop the animals and attempts to throw off his kingly duties.
The Japanese reaction was considered. Tezuka Productions president
Takayuki Matsutani issued a press release to the effect that his company ' . . .
did not believe that lawsuits are an appropriate way of resolving disputes of this
nature . . . We therefore have no intention at this time of filing a lawsuit
against Disney'.
In spite of such legal wrangles, Hollywood's interest in Japanese material
continues undaunted, and many directors remain keen to get involved in
co-productions and adaptations. Christophe Gans, the French director of Crying
Freeman, scripted his own adaptation of the manga by Kazoo Koike and Ryoichi
Ikegami. Like Japan, Gans's native country does not regard comics as a solely
juvenile form, and it should come as no surprise that the first major
live-action feature film based on a manga should have a French director.
Crying Freeman was filmed for $ 8 million, with finance from Asia, Europe
and America and pre-sales to a number of other territories making it
profitable before a single frame was even shot. In France, it became the year's most
successful action film, despite running against big names such as Kurt Russell
and Steven Seagal in Executive Decision, and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Sudden
Death. 'We just crushed them,' says Gans, 'simply because it was a choice
between Freeman and two post-Die Hard action films.' This success has allowed
him to fully finance his next feature, after which he will adapt another
best-selling manga, the futuristic police drama Patlabor.
But what is it that attracts directors such as Cameron and Gans to
manga as potential source material? Crying Freeman, Gans argues, is a classical
tale far beyond the literacy level of most American comics. 'The setting is
contemporary, but the story is a period piece,' he says. 'The characters are not
fighting for money or drugs; they are fighting for honour, pride and passion, just as you
would imagine in the 15th century, in Japan or at the court of the
Borgias.' And for Cameron, whose Digital Domain is a world leader in special effects, there
are shots that can be achieved in animation that are as yet unimagined in what
he describes as real-world photography. 'As the ability to create these
effects increases,' he says, 'it becomes more important to create a style, and I think
digital artists in the US are looking to animation to see what kind of
style can be imposed upon it.' The Japanese themselves are instigating much of the
international interest in their material, actively seeking foreign finance and
talent. Marvin Gleicher, whose company Manga Entertainment brought the
animated versions of Ghost In The Shell and Patlabor to the west, is currently
co-financing a number of projects in Japan. 'The projects that we are
doing are based on the strength of the Japanese market and community, but we're
attempting to make them a bit more westernised, not with character designs, but maybe
storyline and music.' The leading Japanese producer Taro Maki - who invited
composer Christopher Franke to score Tenchi Muyo In Love, and asked actors
Keifer Sutherland and Elizabeth Berkeley to voice roles in Armitage III - is
among those who values such participation. 'Character designers and directors
need to be Japanese for the sake of communication and style,' he says,
'but the Americans and the French have great talent in other areas.' This may explain
why, following the success of his live-action Crying Freeman, Christophe Gans
was approached by Japanese licensors with a selection of other properties.
'They said, 'What do you want to do?' and gave me a list of comics: Midnight Eye
Goku by Buichi Terasawa; Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita, and Patlabor,
which I am going to do.' Anyone interested in these titles can check the appeal for
themselves, years ahead of any live-action release, as all the animated
versions are already available in UK video shops.
Marvin Gleicher has a warning for Hollywood, though. He feels that the
studios may come unstuck if they lose sight of what gave the material its
initial appeal. 'The fact that some of these live-action films are based on
manga will increase the awareness of Japanese culture in a positive sense. But
some of the studios will fail if they attempt to westernise the films too
much.'
Crying Freeman is released on May 9 .Back!