Demon City Shinjuku
Short description
In a near-future Tokyo, the Shinjuku district has been overrun by demonic forces after a warrior named Genichiro Izayoi died fighting the sorcerer Levi Ra ten years earlier. The area is now sealed off and shunned, a ruined zone where monsters and criminals hold sway. Levi Ra is nearing the end of a decade-long plan, a ritual meant to open a gateway between the demon realm and the rest of the world, and once it is complete nothing will hold the invasion back. The dead man's son, Kyoya, is drawn into Shinjuku to finish what his father could not, accompanied by a young woman named Sayaka. Along the way they encounter the enigmatic Mephisto, an ally with unusual healing abilities, and Kyoya begins to discover powers of his own. Rebi Ra appears in some versions under the name Levi Ra or Rah, though sources differ on the exact spelling.
Demon City Shinjuku is an animated action-fantasy horror film released in Japan in 1988, running eighty minutes and produced by the studio Madhouse. It was directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, its place in his filmography coming after Wicked City (1987) and before Neo Tokyo (1989), part of a run of dark supernatural animation he made in that period. The screenplay is by Kaori Okamura, and the voice cast includes Hideyuki Hori as Kyoya, Hiromi Tsuru as Sayaka, Kiyoshi Kobayashi as Levi Ra, Kyoko Tongu as Chibi, Yusaku Yara as Mephisto and Banjo Ginga as Genichirou.
On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.3 from roughly 4,300 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 6 from about 115 votes, indicating a modest but steady level of interest decades after its release.
What's left behind the scenes
- Animators frequently used sketches originally created for unrealized projects about Shinjuku as backgrounds, which allowed the creators to save time and money.
- The English dub turned out to be impassively detached, and the film gained cult status among Western fans.
- Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri later applied the visual techniques used here in the fantasy action film Ninja Scroll (1993).
- It was initially intended that the sorcerer Rebi Ra would have significantly more screen time. The script even included a transformation scene, which had to be cut for being too detailed and lengthy.
- Initially, the animated film was intended to be longer, but this did not fit within the allocated budget and the project's format.
- Shinjuku was chosen because, by the 1980s, it already had a bad reputation as a dangerous district of Tokyo with a bustling nightlife.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
