Death Trance
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Profile
- Movie: Death Trance
- Romaji:
- Japanese: デス・トランス
- Director: Yuji Shimomura
- Action Director: Go Ohara
- Writer: Seiji Chiba, Shinichi Fujita
- Producer:
- Cinematographer
- Action Director: Tak Sakaguchi
- Release Date: May 20, 2006
- Runtime: 90 Min.
- Language: Japanese
- Country: Japan
Plot
Sakaguchi stars as a nameless wanderer, a warrior with only one goal: a fabled coffin housed in a remote temple in the east. Heavily guarded, there are conflicting reports about the coffin’s powers. Some claim whoever opens it will be granted whatever they wish for. Others believe it is a prison for a goddess of destruction. All agree it must be transported from its eastern resting place to the lost forests of the west to be opened. Sakaguchi gains his prize, but on the trip west to open it is under constant assault by gangs of thieves and other wanderers intent on gaining control of the coffin for themselves, not least among them a temple acolyte carrying a magical – and ludicrously phallic, right down to the pulsing veins in one key scene – sword, and a powerful warrior intent on gaining the coffin for himself – played convincingly and with a good amount of charisma by Steven Seagal’s son, Kentaro.
Notes
Shimomura proves a remarkable visual talent, arguably more so than his teacher Kitamura, giving the film a manga-inspired, wildly anachronistic visual charge well beyond its low-budget roots. He shoots beautiful film and augments it well with a series of dazzling set pieces choreographed by Sakaguchi himself. While Sakaguchi is more a brawler than any sort of disciplined fighter, he is smart enough to surround himself with others more skilled, a collection of fighters that begins with Seagal – who has obviously spent a good amount of time training with dad – and includes a capoeira fighter, a pair of vampiric ninjas and a hulking behemoth armed with a massively oversized sword. Character designs are stunningly inventive and somehow, it just makes perfect sense when the ninjas turn out to have machine guns embedded in the hilts of their katanas.
Cast
- Tak Sakaguchi - Grave/Coffin Man
- Honoka Asada - Girl
- Yoko Fujita - Goddess of destruction
- Ben Hiura - Archbishop
- Chuck Johnson - Muscleman
- Kentaro Seagal - Sid
- Takamasa Suga - Ryuen
- Osamu Takahashi - Master
- Yuki Takeuchi - Yuri
Trailer
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