Production stills from Yûdai Yamaguchi's MEATBALL MACHINE (a.k.a. "Mîtobôru mashin"), starring Issei Takahashi & Aoba Kawai

Yûdai Yamaguchi's latest movie is Meatball Machine (a.k.a. "Mîtobôru mashin") - a remake of Jun'ichi Yamamoto's movie of the same title (Japanese Movie Database entry), which premièred at the Nakano Musashino Hall (Nakano Musashino Hôru) in Tokyo on May 22, 1999 (flyer; VHS box cover). The remake stars Issei Takahashi and Aoba Kawai. (Kawai was in Ryôko Yoshida's Love Twisted (Tomoshibi) - one of the four movies in Euro Space's Eros Bancho Series (Erosu banchô shirîzu).) Keita Amemiya designed the characters for it. (Amemiya himself directed "The Promise" ("Yakusoku") in the omnibus horror movie Tales of Terror (Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro: gekijô-ban).) Yoshihiro Nishimura was responsible for its special effects, special make-up effects, and molds. (Nishimura previously worked on Noboru Iguchi's Impolite Education (18-kin - abunai kankei: the kinshinsôkan), "Evil Guy" ("Yôchû no harawata") - a.k.a. "Entrails of a Larva" - and A Larva to Love (Koi suru yôchû).

Yamaguchi's Meatball Machine is scheduled to première at the Tokyo International Fantastic Film Festival 2005 (Tôkyô Kokusai Fantasutikku Eigasai 2005) on October 14th. There's an article about the movie here on Tokyo Fanta's website. (BTW, there's a streaming trailer for this year's festival here on that site.) There are dozens of production stills from the movie on (Yoshihiro) Nishimura's blog - see the June, July, and August archives.

Yamaguchi's previous directing credits include Sakigake!! Cromartie High School: The Movie (Sakigake!! Kuromati Kôkô: The Movie), Present (Purezento) - one of the half-dozen hour-long movies in the Kazuo Umezu's Horror Theater (Umezu Kazuo: kyôfu gekijô) series - and Battlefield Baseball (Jigoku Kôshien).