Showtimes: June 29, 8:30pm at the ImaginAsian [SOLD OUT!!!]. Director Eiichiro Hasumi and star Ryuta Sato will introduce the screening.
ANNOUNCEMENT 1: Previously announced Hideaki Ito won't be able to attend the festival, due to a scheduling conflict.
ANNOUNCEMENT 2: A second screening of UMIZARU 2 has been added: June 30, 8:00pm at the ImaginAsian! [Buy Tickets]
Trailers: [Link]
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| In 2004, the New York Asian Film Festival hosted the international premiere of UMIZARU, Japan's TOP GUN for the Coast Guard that played to sold out houses here, and did great business overseas. And then last month, its sequel, UMIZARU 2: TEST OF TRUST opened in Japan and instantly became one of the biggest movies of the year. Cracking the box office wide open like a thunderbolt, U2's opening weekend was 442% bigger than the first movie's entire run, and it instantly became the second highest grossing opening weekend ever in Japanese film history. Sometimes the sequel is better.
And this is a bigger, better movie in every way. UMIZARU was about the rigorous training program for Japan's Rescue Divers, with screen idol, Hideaki Ito, playing a determined recruit who winds up making the cut and winning the princess, Kana, all to the sounds of "Open Arms: by Journey. UMIZARU 2 picks up when Ito has been on the job a couple of years and he's haunted by past tragedies, weighed down by guilt, and is basically an emotionally impacted Gloomy Gus. Fool that he is, he even breaks up with Kana. But then the news comes in that the Clover is sinking. An enormous ferry, roughly the size of a 9 story building, it's carrying 620 people,195 highly-combustible vehicles and, of course, Kana. As its emergency system fails and fires break out it's up to the Rescue Divers, (aka the Umizaru – sea monkeys) to swing on board and save the day. But as the disaster escalates out of all control it quickly becomes clear that this time out there may be no happy ending.
Directed by Eiichiro Hasumi (UMIZARU), and produced by Hirotsugi Usui, the mastermind behind hits like Japan's wildly popula BAYSIDE SHAKEDOWN series, UMIZARU is a highly evolved summer blockbuster. Scuba divers, romance, enormous sinking ships, white knuckle rescue missions…it's the perfect relief from the summer heat. The only downside is you may have the producers of POSEIDON sitting behind you and taking notes.
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