Yep, half-term must be coming up. You can always tell when these things are coming up – but weirdly, looks like the root is quite manga…

First up is the DVD and Blu-ray release of Astro Boy, getting a big budget CGI makeover courtesy of Flushed Away director David Bowers and featuring an eccentric mix of voice actors including Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson , Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Matt Lucas and Eugene Levy. Oddly the source material, the manga by Osamu Tezuka and following highly influential animated series, the godfather of all things Anime, don’t even seem to get a mention.

Arguably a little closer to the source comes Sleeping Bride, adapted from another work by Tezuka, The Glass Brain. An offbeat love story between a boy and a girl in a coma, it was directed by Hideo Nakata between his Ringu films and the ultimate J-Horror (actually it’s so good let’s not even label it) Dark Water. (His second English language film Chatroom, after the almost entirely unconnected The Ring Two, having debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews).

Both films come out this Monday, 31 May – though I’m betting the latter is a lot less orientated towards kids, and maybe a lot more interesting…

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This entry was published by Andy H on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Japan, News, Releases, UK, USA, _Clips and trailers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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