kwak Jae-Yong, director of the runaway hit comedy "My Sassy Girl" (2001), has commenced shooting on his new project, a big-budget sci-fi romance, in Japan. Cyborg Girl(aka My Girlfriend is a Cyborg) is a 1 billion yen production (US$8.5 million) being shot in Japanese language with an all-Japanese cast and crew, the only exceptions being writer/director KWAK and executive producer JI Yeong-joon.
Financed and produced by Japanese firm Amuse, the project began preliminary shooting January 17, with a release date planned for early2008. KWAK had been approached with several offers to adapt Japanese comics, but in the end decided to write his own screenplay. The story revolves around a cyborg girl who travels back to the present from the future to try to help her boyfriend out of trouble. Both computer graphics and wire-action will be employed in the film's action sequences.
In the main cast actress Ayase Haruka, who appeared in Crying Out Love in the Center of the World, plays the sassy cyborg, while actor Koide Keisuke, who appeared in TV drama Nodame Cantabile, plays the timid boy in need of rescue. The mix of sci-fi and romantic-comedy, a genre KWAK excels in, should raise anticipation for the film both in Japan and Korea.
KWAK is familiar to Japanese audiences with two of his previous films receiving theatrical releases in Japan and performing quite well there. "My Sassy Girl" earned US$4.2 million in limited release, while "Windstruck" (2003) took in an impressive $US15.2 million in a 2005 nationwide release.
KWAK recently wrapped post-production on a new Korean feature, "My Mighty Princess", starring SIN Mi-nah and On Joo-wan. It is billed as a melodrama with actress SIN playing a college student, and is produced by Podo films. Prime Entertainment will distribute the film domestically with a release expected in the first quarter of this year.
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