HELLDRIVER from Sushi Typhoon

Press Notes for New Zombie Film from the Director of TOKYO GORE POLICE Source: Sushi Typhoon Special Thanks to Marc Walkow

Sushi Typhoon`s HELLDRIVER (?????HELL DRIVER, Nihon Bundan: Heru Doraibaa, 2010) is the latest movie from cult-favorite splatter film director Yoshihiro Nishimura. The all-out zombie epic has been playing the international film festival circuit. The following press notes and images are courtesy of Sushi Typhoon... WELCOME TO ZOMBIE WORLD! An alien-spawned, mysterious mist blankets the northern half of Japan, transforming those who inhale it into ravenous, flesh-eating zombies hell-bent on devouring the surviving human population. Plunged into chaos, Japan is torn in two— the southern half of the country, where the populace remains untouched by the deadly gas, lives behind a heavily-fortified wall, while the northern half is a lawless, zombie-infected wasteland. Political forces are locked in a stalemate over whether the living dead should remain protected as family members or exterminated like a plague. The economy withers away, and all hope seems lost for the people and the nation of Japan. Hope arrives in the form of Kika (Yumiko Hara), a beautiful high school girl armed with a chainsaw sword powered by an artificial heart. Recruited by the government, Kika leads a ragtag group of desperados on a secret mission into the zombie-infected wilds to exterminate zombie queen Rikka (Eihi Shiina from AUDITION and TOKYO GORE POLICE) and put an end to the plague of the living dead. But the road is fraught with a thriving zombie culture that, with its own designs on the living half of Japan, refuses to lay down and die. Visionary filmmaker Yoshihiro Nishimura`s first solo directorial effort since TOKYO GORE POLICE is an epic, apocalyptic road movie featuring non-stop action and over-the-top splatter. The long-awaited realization of his dreams, HELLDRIVER is Nishimura`s bid to create the ultimate zombie film. The showdown for the future of Japan is at hand and no one, living or dead, may survive to see it!

HELLDRIVER Credits

MAIN CAST: Yumiko Hara as Kika Eihi Shiina as Rikka Yurei Yanagi as Taku Kazuki Namioka Kentaro Kishi Mizuki Kusumi as Nanashi Minoru Torihada Guadalcanal Taka ADDITIONAL CAST: Takumi Saitoh Tomomi Miyashita Cay Izumi Maki Mizui Honoka Yuya Ishikawa Taro Suruga Rui Saotome Ikuko Sawada Aya Kinoshita Yukihide Benny Hiroyuki Otsuki CREW: Written, Character Designed, Edited & Directed by YOSHIHIRO NISHIMURA Executive Producer AKI SUGIHARA Producers YOSHINORI CHIBA, HIROYUKI YAMADA Screenplay DAICHI NAGISA Music by KOH NAKAGAWA Director of Photography SHU G. MOMOSE Lighting Director HIROSHI OTA Production Designer NORI FUKUDA VFX Supervisor TSUYOSHI KAZUNO Special Make-Up TAIGA ISHINO Action Director ISAO KARASAWA First Assistant Director JUN SHIOZAKI Running time: 106 minutes

About Writer / Editor / Designer / Director YOSHIHIRO NISHIMURA Born in Tokyo in 1967, Yoshihiro Nishimura taught himself to do special effects, and went on to found one of the busiest special effects makeup companies in Japan, Nishi-Eizo, which has practically created a genre unto itself, with work on films ranging from SUICIDE CLUB to L: CHANGE THE WORLD to GOTHIC AND LOLITA PSYCHO. He began making short films in high school and college, and directed his first short feature, ANATOMIA EXTINCTION, in 1995, providing the template for his later TOKYO GORE POLICE, which debuted in 2008 at film festivals around the world. Nishimura has also been closely associated with the work of Sion Sono, contributing effects and production design to SUICIDE CLUB, EXTE and many others. After TOKYO GORE POLICE, Nishimura co-directed VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL (with Naoyuki Tomomatsu), and made MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD for Sushi Typhoon with Noboru Iguchi and Tak Sakaguchi. One of the busiest creative forces in the low-budget Japanese film industry, he has several projects in the works, the most significant being his first solo directorial feature since TGP, the massive zombie road movie epic HELLDRIVER, part of The Sushi Typhoon.

About Sushi Typhoon

Born in 2010, Sushi Typhoon is the the upstart, wild offspring of respectable parent, Nikkatsu Corporation, once home to legendary 1960`s action stars like Joe Shishido, Akira Kobayashi, Tetsuya Watari, Meiko Kaji and Yujiro Ishihara. With a long history of genre films and violent gangster epics, the company was also the leader of Japan`s erotic renaissance of the 1970s with their Roman Porno line and now, Nikkatsu`s latest offering, Sushi Typhoon, takes their century-old extremes to the next level. The brainchild of veteran producer Yoshinori Chiba, The ushi Typhoon seeks to satisfy audiences who crave the good taste of bad taste, and for whom too much is never enough. A tour-de-force of inventive, boundary-pushing entertainment, the first phase of Sushi Typhoon`s films began release in late 2010 and early 2011, with the company self-distributing their titles in North America with the assistance of FUNimation Entertainment. FUNimation will begin releasing Sushi Typhoon titles to DVD and BluRay in early 2011.

For more information on Sushi Typhoon please see the earlier coverage here on SciFi Japan: