BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO International Premiere at Fantasia Film Festival

Source: Shochiku Co., Ltd. press release Official Movie Site: horumo.jp (Japan), horumo.com (US) Special Thanks to Junko Kawaguchi

The combat action comedy BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO (Kamogawa Horumo) will have its international premiere this week at the 2009 Fantasia Festival in Montreal, Canada. The movie, called "the strangest film ever made", won the competition "Grand Prix" at the 1st Okinawa International Film Festival in Japan earlier this year. Fantasia`s BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO screening will take place at 5:00pm on July 24th at the Concordia Hall Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve O. Based on the best-selling fantasy novel Kamogawa Horumo written by Manabu Makime, BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO is a story about a group of university students who get involved in playing a game of "Horumo" - a combat match where each team manipulates 100 spirits (referred to as Oni) to fight their opponents. Akira Abe (Takayuki Yamada), a freshman at Kyoto University student fall in love with his classmate Kyoko Sawara (Sei Ashina) and soon ends up at a mysterious club called "Kyoto University Azure Dragon", which turns out to be one of the Horumo teams playing the mysterious (and somewhat absurd) game which started over 1,200 years ago in the Heian period. The heat rises as you see 2,000 CGI-created spirits wage fierce battles against the backdrop of the breathtakingly beautiful city of Kyoto. Let the battle begin! BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO features stunning visual effects that vividly bring the Oni spirits to life and were created by the renowned Gonzo animation studio, which also produced animated features like AFRO SAMURAI, BRAVE STORY, and BASILISK. The film will also be screened at the 2009 Hawaii International Film Festival (October 15-25) and will have a release in the US from VIZ Pictures by the end of this year.

For more information on BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO please see the earlier coverage here on SciFi Japan: