Showtimes: 6/19, 9:00pm at the Anthology [BUY TICKETS] and 6/25, 8:30pm at the ImaginAsian [BUY TICKETS]

Seijun Suzuki, Japan 's grand old wild man of cinema, has turned out incredibly stylized and freakishly beautiful movies since the 1950's. In 2002 his PISTOL OPERA played the New York Asian Film Festival, and we are over-joyed to host the North American Premiere of his latest movie, fresh out of Cannes: PRINCESS RACCOON. A musical, starring Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, this flick tells the story of a young prince who is banished from the palace and falls in love with a tanuki princess. A what princess? A tanuki: a magical Japanese raccoon that can disguise itself as a human. Zhang Ziyi plays the tanuki princess and, needless to say, things get wild and wooly in a song-and-dance kind of way.

For Seijun Suzuki, making a movie is just downright fun, and his joy is
infectious. Silly and stunning, PRINCESS RACCOON is a wild ride if you've
got your head on right. The King banishes his son because the magic bowl of
soup says his son has become more handsome than he is. Characters break out
into opera arias, bust out some hip-hop, sing to 80's era synthesizer disco
beats. Kabuki krazed, the movie breaks out clockwork animation, and theater
machinery that is head-slappingly simple and stunningly effective. If Guy
Maddin could sing in Japanese, PRINCESS RACCOON would be his latest song.
 
Quentin Tarantino once said that "directing is a young man's game." Quentin Tarantino is full of hot air. At 82 years old, Seijun Suzuki is making the kind of wild movies that blow away what younger directors are doing.