Forty-seven-year-old filmmaker Kazuaki Kiriya is as famed for being a tall, flamboyant loudmouth ¡ª he married Japanese diva Hikaru Utada when she was 16 years old (and he was 35) ¡ª as he is for making sleek CG-heavy extravaganzas that never manage to do well at the box office. Now Kiriya has directed his first English-language Hollywood production, ¡°Last Knights.¡±
Starring Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen, and made on the kind of budget many Japanese filmmakers can only dream of (rumored to be around ?5 billion), ¡°Last Knights¡± opens on Nov. 14 ¡ª more than seven months after its U.S. debut. Even a cursory glance tells you this is a distinctly Kiriya production: It oozes gorgeous visuals and nonsensical plot lines.
¡°I don¡¯t know, the Japanese movie industry doesn¡¯t seem to like me very much,¡± Kiriya says, in excellent English. ¡°But then, people always thought I was strange here ¡ª I was this crazy kid, and still am.¡±
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