Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2011

Fans of traditional Japanese theater have been somewhat left out in the cold while the Kabukiza theater in Ginza undergoes a three-year reconstruction project. But they can still get their kabuki fix on the big screen. Shochiku theaters are launching a new series of lavishly filmed classics, in the vein of the chain’s current series showing performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. The first work to be screened will be Monzaemon Chikamatsu’s The Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil, which started as a bunraku puppet play in 1721. The performance was shot in 2006 before the Kabukiza’s closing, and stars veteran actor Nizaemon Kataoka. The project brings together traditional theater and modern technology, as productions are shot and projected in high definition with Dolby digital sound. Screenings have already been held to rave reviews in Toronto, New York and Rome, and begin at Shochiku cinemas across Japan on July 25. www.shochiku.co.jp/cinemakabuki… Spike Lee has been tapped to direct an American adaptation of the manga series Old Boy, about a man seeking answers, and revenge, after he was thrown in solitary confinement in a mysterious prison for ten years. The story was previously given the cinematic treatment in a notoriously violent film by Korean director Park Chan-wook. Actor/producer Will Smith previously held the American remake rights before allowing them to expire.