Lowlife Love (2015) - New movie from 'Greatful Dead' director Eiji Uchida

[One Armed Boxer]

Eiji Uchida, the director of last years 'Greatful Dead', is hoping to make a new movie which will be 100% produced by UK distributor Third Window Films. Definitely a worthy project to get behind, you can check out the link and details below -

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/893976289/lowlife-love-new-japanese-film

 

 

 

Lowlife Love - New Japanese Film

by Third Window Films

 

 

 

A new film from 'Greatful Dead' director Eiji Uchida with a cast of stars such as Denden, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Kanji Tsuda & more!

 

About this project

 

Earlier this year Third Window Films released Eiji Uchida's original take on the slasher genre with GREATFUL DEAD, a film which was called "Amelie meets Battle Royale" (as original mixup if ever there was one) by The Geek Show and was included in many Top 10 lists of 2014 including Twitch and Film Bizarro among others, so when the director came to us with a new project we were more than eager to help out!

 

Lowlife Love (tentative title - Japanese title is 下衆の愛 - Gesu no Ai) is a slacker comedy about Tetsuo, a film loving, though up his own ass low-life whose bitterness about a failed career as a director is taken out on those around him. He makes porn films to keep money in his pocket, but won't go against his 'artistic integrity' which he uses as a tool to exploit women and others. One day he comes across a perfect script and a young, fresh actress, but will he be able to make the film which will reignite his career as a director, or will his past exploits catch up on him?

 

The lead character of Tetsuo is played by Kiyohiko Shibukawa who is one of Japan's leading independent actors. He has had a long career starring in films across the board, always popping up in those from Toshiaki Toyoda (9 Souls, Blue Spring, I'm Flash, etc), but also has main parts in films such as Yoshihiro Nakamura's Golden Slumber, Yu Irie's Joker Game, Sion Sono's upcoming Love & Peace, Sogo Ishii's latest That's That and much more.

Third Window Film fans will also recognise him from our releases of And the Mud Ship Sails Away, Isn't Anyone Alive and Fish Story.

 

Despite our low budget and short shooting schedule (just 1 week), we have called in favours from all over to bring in a phenomenal cast plus we will be shooting with a RED camera (almost unheard of with independent films in Japan).

 

The cast includes:

• Denden (Cold Fish, Himizu)

• Kanji Tsuda (Juon: The Grudge, Guilty of Romance)

• Kanji Furutachi (Woodsman & the Rain, Fukuchan of Fukufuku Flats)

• Shugo Oshinari (Kabukicho Love Hotel, Yokohama Story)

• Yoshihiko Hosoda (Detroit Metal City, Lady Shogun and her Men)

• Yuumi Goto (Be My Baby, I Catch a Terrible Cat)

 

This is a totally independent production, produced only by us at Third Window Films and on a very small budget. To reach the production budget, I, Adam Torel, had to sell the majority of my personal record collection of 1960s rare records, which was more than half my life's work and passion.

Unfortunately (though also fortunately depending on how you look at it) the project became more popular than we had imagined and has slightly swelled in budget, hence running this crowdfunding campaign to cover the gaps. The amount raised in this campaign will be used to cover the extra fees of the bigger name cast, plus cover post-production expenses such as editing, sound correction and colour grading.

 

We start shooting on March 12th and will finish on March 19th.

 

Risks and challenges

 

Since the basic production budget is complete we can make the film without any problems, we just need to cover the end bits such as post-production and some cast fees.

 

Third Window Films already have experience producing films in Japan, plus as an international sales agent to handle the film once complete, as since we've been running a distribution company for 10 years and also book for many festivals we can't see many setbacks once the film is funded. Due to the impressive cast and director we have high expectations for the film, hence us taking on this project!

[One Armed Boxer]

Trailer is out for this one, and it'll be making its premiere at the end of this month at the Tokyo Film Festival -

 

[One Armed Boxer]

First review is up from the guys over at Twitch - 

http://twitchfilm.com/2016/01/rotterdam-2016-lowlife-love-is-crafty-filthy-and-bitter.html

[Takuma]

I saw this last year when it was in theatres. It was kind of good, but I wasn't really enthusiastic about it. I've grown a bit tired of these modern indie films by young filmmakers who seem the be making movies for themselves, about themselves, clueless of what other filmmakers have done before them. Lowlife was a pretty ok film, and not all of the fore-mentioned "accusations" apply to this film, but somehow when I see Uchida's work I can't help but to occasionally associate him with those filmmakers. When you do a low key film about very "daily" topics you really need something exceptional to make it special to those who don't belong to your "group"...

Well, that's just me. Japanese indies do have an audience in Japan, the same people who will go see every new Japanese indie that gets a theatrical release. Perhaps I just belong to the wrong "group".

Looking back at the film now, with the Harvey Weinstein stuff and all, I think the film came out 2 years too early. Japanese film industry has its own little Harveys, and this film shows it. The film should be more timely now.