Ryuhei Kitamura's Love Death

[Bueno]

Ryuhei Kitamura's at it again.

Love Death: Official site

 

[Bolt]

Whatever happened to Band-Aid? Last I heard he was doing that and got signed to a Midnight Meat Train adap.

 

[Bueno]

Beats me. I haven't really been keepin' up with Kitamura as of late since he hasn't really been expressing himself as an action director recently. Which is okay, but it just feels like Versus is the only movie of his that everybody cares about.

In fact, a lot of the stunt guys from U'Den don't really work with him as they used to. When I went to practice they's barely talk about him, so I guess he's tryin' to esatblish himself as a director outside of action nowadays.

I hang around more with Ohara Go since action directing is all he does. Although I never met Kitamura, it just seems like Ohara Go's a more fun director to work with. At least that's how I feel.

 

[Bolt]

Versus is definitely what he's known best for but I really like Aragami, Heat After Dark, and especially Alive just as much. Really the only film of his I haven't liked so far was Sky High, he has a pretty good track record as far as impressing me goes.

 

[Bueno]

Yeah, I liked Aragami and Alive. I even liked the two short films he did for Jam Films and Jam Films S (The Messenger, Heaven Cent). But after watchin' Sky High I just wasn't impressed with his work anymore. Especially after watching Death Trance, I realized that Shimomura is the guy who provides more of the action rather than Kitamura.

I still like Kitamura, but just not as much as other action directors such as Ohara Go and Shimomura Yuji. And I ain't sayin' that just cause they're my friends P ) but because I respect tham as Action directors more than Kitamura.

Kitamura is dedicated to making good films, which is good...but Ohara and Shimomura are dedicated to providing really cool action to make a movie fun to watch and let the writers handle the story.

Recently, Ohara left U'Den. It says on their site that he "graduated" from the team, but awhile back I think there was a bit of strife between him and the rest of the group...

 

[Bolt]

Kitamura isn't really an action director though, he's just responsible for the crazy angles and framing and his movies usually have lots of action. If you've seen the Ultimate Versus new footage though, in the behind-the-scenes they talk about Shimomura not being able to be there to choreograph and it really shows, a lot of the new action is really repetitive punching and kneeing (or just totally ridiculous **** like doing backflips while shooting... why Kitamura, why!?), although there is a pretty good exchange during the finale and the opening samurai sequence (which was choreographed by Sakaguchi) is also really great. It's always cool to see a Kitamura action movie, I just hope he doesn't get too big for his britches in the way that other action-movie-directors like Rodriguez did.

By the way, who exactly is part of U'Den and what all have they worked on?

 

[KamenGrappler]

Love Death looks pretty sweet from the trailer.

I really like Kitamura, because tho I do like Versus the best, I really like Azumi, Alive, and Aragami as well. Battlefield Baseball was sweet too, which he produced I think.

 

[Bolt]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Azumi, haha. I liked the crazy Mad Max style samurai motif and the action was well done, but I didn't really like the cast and the whole thing was kinda slow. Still lots better than Sky High, though.

 

[koji17]

And don't forget Final Wars! HAHA
Kitamurasan and Amemiyasan are my favorites!
This new one looks interesting. ^-^

 

[Bueno]

By the way, who exactly is part of U'Den and what all have they worked on?

U'den Flameworks member listing

A lot of their work is listed on their site. The most recent noticeable ones being Devil May Cry 4 and Dororo. My Sempai in the group is Yoshida Hiroyuki. He's currently working as the action co-ordinator for Metal Gear Solid 4.