Midnight Eye
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After a very uncharacteristic one-year absence from filmmaking, Kiyoshi Kurosawa was back behind the camera in April 2002. In contrast to the big-budget studio backing of Pulse, his new film Bright Future (Akarui Mirai, a.k.a. Jellyfish Alert) is an independent production. Revolving around a young man who breeds poison jellyfish that are set free into a river, Bright Future stars man-of-the moment Tadanobu Asano, Gemini's Ryo, newcomer Joe Odagiri and veteran Tatsuya Fuji (best known for his work with Nagisa Oshima on In the Realm of the Senses).

Kiyoshi Kurosawa set report - Jellyfish Alert

Midnight Eye visited the set on two consecutive days. The first was in a laundry in the town of Warabi (northwest of Tokyo), the second at a riverside in Hiyoshi (south of Tokyo). On set those days were Asano, Odagiri and Fuji.

We also had the opportunity to speak to Kiyoshi Kurosawa about the film:
 

From a look at the script it seems that with this film you're talking about the generation gap in general and the relationship between fathers and sons in particular.

Yes, that's true. That's one of the elements of this story, but it wasn't the aim from the beginning. At the start I wanted to show the difference in values between human beings. The generation gap was a tool to show this.

Was the use of the generation gap inspired by Pulse and your experience of working with young actors?

It's inspired more by my work with the students at the Film School of Tokyo. I am a teacher there so I have a lot of occasion for discussions with my students. So that relationship and the differences I found there went into this story.

You're working with the Sony 24p digital camera on this film. How does that influence the way you shoot? On a day like in Warabi, where you had to shoot a lot of scenes in one day, I can imagine it gives you more flexibility.

The preparations are no different from using a regular film camera, but it's a lot easier during shooting, because you don't need so much light. I've wanted to use this camera for some time, to see how it compares to working with film. There's quite a difference, I feel, especially in the use of light. This digital camera is very sensitive to light. With film, to achieve the same level of darkness as with digital, it paradoxically takes a lot more light. For this film I'm aiming to use that in order to get a real high-contrast image, like the films of Fritz Lang or film noir.

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