Best known in Japan as a fashion photographer and music-video director, Kazuaki Kiriya has made his feature-film debut with "Casshern," the Japanese film industry's most extravagant marriage yet between live action and 3-D animation.
Bilingual -- in English and Japanese -- Kiriya is already getting offers from Hollywood, while fending off local tabloid interest in his marriage to former client and pop diva Hikaru Utada. In person, he is something of a shojo manga (girls' comic) dream -- tall, slim and handsome in a thin-faced, fair-skinned way and dressed in impeccably stylish black. He was also the ideal interviewee: outgoing, enthusiastic and frank. Our conversation at the Hotel Otani ran overtime -- not because we were pestering Kiriya with questions, but because he had so much to say about a film that has been his consuming passion.
"When I first saw the TV animation series 'Casshern,' I was wowed by the images of futuristic robots and its European setting," says Kiriya.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.