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Ever since the first season of One Piece live-action was released, the one thing that has remained constant is the fans’ love for the cast of the series. Among the cast members, the one who has earned the respect of fans the most is Mackenyu, who plays Roronoa Zoro. Zoro is one of the most difficult characters to play in One Piece, but Mackenyu made it look like a walk in a park.

Mackenyu as Zoro | Credits: Netflix

Not only carrying three swords but using them and following every emotion of the character perfectly is something that only a dedicated actor like Mackenyu could have done. However, the one who recognized his real talent was Eiichiro Oda. Oda desperately wanted Mackenyu to be a part of One Piece live-action after looking at his work in Japanese cinema.

His desperation is reflected in the fact that he approached Mackenyu twice for the role of Zoro,...

Japanese stars Oguri Shun (“Godzilla vs. Kong”) and Aoi Yu (“Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter Part I – The Final”) are set to reunite on screen after 23 years in “Human Vapor,” a new Netflix series produced in collaboration with Toho. The duo last worked together in 2001’s “Ao to Shiro de Mizuiro.”

“Human Vapor” is a modern reimagining of the 1960 sci-fi thriller of the same name. The original film, directed by Honda Ishirō of “Godzilla” fame, tells the story of a librarian who gains the ability to transform into a gaseous state after being subjected to radiation experiments. Using his newfound powers, he embarks on a series of bank robberies to financially support a struggling dancer he admires. The film is renowned for its exploration of power structures and societal oppression.

Yeon Sang-ho, known for “Train to Busan” and “Hellbound,” is set to executive produce and has co-written the script alongside...

When One Piece live-action took the world by storm last year, the one name that made the most noise was Mackenyu, the actor who played Roronoa Zoro in the series. Although Mackenyu has been part of the industry for quite a long time and has worked on many big projects, his following skyrocketed when he joined the cast of Netflix’s One Piece and took the famous three swords in his hands.

Mackenyu as Zoro in One Piece Live-Action | Netflix

While One Piece gave the actor the recognition he deserved, it was certainly not his first live-action adaptation. From playing Scar in the Fullmetal Alchemist live-action to portraying the role of Pegasus Seiya in Knights of the Zodiac, Mackenyu’s portfolio is quite big for his age. And while Zoro was his biggest role as a swordsman, it was certainly not his first or his favorite one.

The actor recently...

Live-action anime adaptations have historically had a negative impact on the source material's reputation, but recent successes like Rurouni Kenshin and Alice in Borderland show that proper quality shifts are possible. Filmmakers face challenges in adapting anime due to differences in Western and Eastern sensibilities, as well as the difficulty of translating the anime's unique style, characters, and dialogue to the screen. The success of the live-action Bleach movie and its respect for the source material and audience bodes well for future live-action anime adaptations, with studios now having improved production values and increased positive reception to work with.

The upcoming live-action Naruto movie is the last of the big-three Shōnen Jump anime to receive a live-action adaptation, and with the recent string of live-action adaptation successes, it's safe to say that another beloved anime could get the live-action treatment. In the past, bad live-action anime adaptations typically damaged their...

Recent live-action anime adaptations like One Piece have proven that it is now the best time to adapt more anime into TV shows. TV format offers more time for producers to develop the arcs, characters, and themes of anime adaptations in a more efficient way. The success of One Piece in the TV format suggests that TV might be the new home for live-action anime adaptations.

Neftlix's One Piece success has proven that now is the best time to adapt more anime into live-action TV shows. At one point, it was commonly agreed upon that live-action anime adaptations simply couldn't work due to the genre's Eastern sensibilities and Hollywood's Western tastes being too different. Furthermore, anime primarily thrives on its ability to express its emotions and themes through its unique animation, and many of the fight scenes are considered too difficult to recreate in a real-life context. With critical failures like Dragonball Evolution,...

Plans for a live-action Naruto adaptation are finally moving forward after a long period of no updates, indicating renewed interest in the project. Unlike Netflix's One Piece series, the live-action Naruto adaptation will be a movie, which raises concerns due to the history of disappointing live-action anime movies. One Piece's success as a TV show demonstrates that adapting shonen anime into a series allows for more time to properly develop characters and story arcs, suggesting that Naruto would have been better off as a TV show as well.

Plans for the upcoming live-action Naruto adaptation are moving forward, and the latest updates on the project confirm how lucky One Piece fans were regarding the Netflix series. Based on the original manga series by creator Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto is one of the most successful and influential anime of all time. First announced by Lionsgate in 2015, the live-action adaptation received...

Mackenyu's role as Roronoa Zoro in Netflix's live-action adaptation of One Piece has brought him global fame and has been praised for its accuracy to the anime and excellent casting. While Mackenyu has been in many anime adaptations throughout his career, some projects like Knights of the Zodiac have missed the mark. Mackenyu's performance in Rurouni Kenshin: The Final as the villain Yukishiro Enishi showcases his ability to bring depth to his characters and steal the show in action-adventure films.

Mackenyu Arata, known as Mackenyu, has starred in many live-action anime adaptations throughout his career, but some of these movies and TV shows are more memorable than others. Despite his father being Sonny Chiba, a Japanese action movie star, Mackenyu's acting inspiration was Haruma Miura. Mackenyu dedicated his life to acting at the age of 17 and got his first role in the feature film Take a Chance in...

The success of Knights of the Zodiac on Netflix indicates that Hollywood is capable of properly adapting manga/anime, after years of disappointing live-action adaptations. Mackenyu's performances in both One Piece and Knights of the Zodiac have contributed greatly to their success, making him a breakout star in the world of live-action anime. The success of Knight of the Zodiac and other anime adaptations on Netflix opens up the possibility for expanding the One Piece universe and potentially giving Mackenyu's character a spinoff.

The timing of Knights of the Zodiac's releasing on Netflix is perfect, as the streaming service builds on its recent success with manga/anime. For years, audiences have suffered through some of the worst live-action adaptations of anime, and it has contributed to the belief that Hollywood simply isn't capable of properly adapting the unique and well-respected medium. Knights of the Zodiac is based on...

The Netflix live-action One Piece cast stays true to the original anime and manga franchise, which has been a popular and epic series. One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda was heavily involved in the production, ensuring that the adaptation matches the charm of the animated characters. The cast, including Iñaki Godoy (Luffy), Mackenyu Arata (Zoro), Emily Rudd (Nami), and more, closely resembles their animated counterparts, which helped bring One Piece to life in live action on Netflix.

The Netflix live-action One Piece cast ended up being very faithful to the original anime and manga franchise. With its colorful cast of characters, fanciful fight scenes, and storylines that get more and more epic in scope and length with each installment, One Piece has long been one of the biggest and most popular anime franchises. Every new installment of the One Piece franchise has had an incredible amount of care and attention brought its way,...

Cinema admissions in Japan increased by 8% over 2020, to 115 million. Box office grosses improved by 13% to $1.42 billion in the same period, according to figures released on Wednesday by the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren).

But compared to earnings of $2.29 billion on admissions of 195 million in the pre-pandemic era, last year was still way behind. In 2021, attendance was 41% below 2019 levels. Gross box office was 38% down.

Local films, with earnings of $1.13 billion, grabbed a 79% market share, compared with 76% in 2020. They accounted for nine of the top ten box office titles for the year. Number one was “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time,” a sci-fi anime film written and directed by Anno Hideaki, that made $90 million following its March 2021 bow.

The highest ranking live-action film, at number four with $40 million , was “Arashi Anniversary Tour 5×20 Film “Record of Memories,” a concert film of the boy band Arashi, which retired at the end of 2020 after a county-wide concert tour.

Another year, another bountiful crop of action filmmaking. The following article covers some of the best. Like with last year’s installment, the focus will be on action scenes—compact, heightened expressions of action filmmaking craft—rather than films as a whole, which means that some otherwise strong, action-adjacent pictures may be missing and a couple included films look fairly lackluster beyond their set pieces. For the sake of variety, I have limited myself to one scene per film, and all featured films made their official, non-festival, U.S. theatrical and/or streaming debut in 2021. The criterion of “official” excludes the Chinese direct-to-YouTube actioner One More Shot, which was removed after just a few days online. Whenever the film receives a more “legitimate” stateside debut, it will almost certainly be included in that year’s roundup. And now, to the action. The scenes have been organized into loose thematic...

Probably one of the best years for action/martial arts cinema lately, 2021 saw a number of truly impressive titles coming out, as China’s blockbusters seem to be getting better, followed by the Korean ones, Japanese manga adaptations continue to be on a very high-level, at least production level-wise and Asean countries keep on producing some of the most interesting in the category through the combination of social commentary and exploitation elements. Furthermore, a number of movies that do not fall in any of the aforementioned groups but are of equal quality, rounded up a truly great year for Asian genre.

Without further ado, here are the best Asian martial arts/action films of 2021, in reverse order. Some films may have premiered in 2019, but since they mostly circulated in 2021, we decided to include them.

15. Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (Keishi Ohtomo)

On the other hand, the action element is top notch,...

Locally-made films, especially animated titles, dominated the Japanese box office in 2021. The territory is usually the world’s third biggest cinema market, behind China and North America.

Though official figures compiled by the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren), will be not be announced until next month, numbers from the Pick Scene movie rankings and box office site show “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time” as the year’s top earning film with a gross of $90 million following its March 8 release. A sci-fi anime written and directed by Anno Hideaki and produced by Anno’s Studio Khara, it is the fourth and final film in his “Rebuild of Evangelion” film series, which is part of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise.

All of the top-three earning films in Japan this year are animations, including number two “Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet” ($67.5 million), the latest iteration of the “Detective Conan” teen-detective mystery franchise.

The FX series adaptation of the James Clavell novel “Shōgun” has rounded out its main cast.

Anna Sawai has been cast in the lead role of Lady Mariko, joining previously announced leads Cosmo Jarvis and Hiroyuki Sanada. In addition, the ensemble cast will now also include: Tadanobu Asano, Fumi Nikaido, Tokuma Nishioka, Takehiro Hira, Ako, Shinnosuke Abe, Yasunari Takeshima, Hiroto Kanai, Toshi Toda, Hiro Kanagawa, Nestor Carbonell, Yuki Kura, Tommy Bastow, Moeka Hoshi, Yoriko Doguchi and Yuka Kouri.

Furthermore, Jonathan van Tulleken has come aboard to direct the first two episodes with production now underway in Vancouver. The show has received a 10-episode order at FX.

“Shōgun” is set in feudal Japan. It charts the collision of two ambitious men from different worlds and a mysterious female samurai. John Blackthorne (Jarvis), a risk-taking English pilot major ends up shipwrecked in Japan, a land whose unfamiliar culture will ultimately redefine him.

Andy Cheng has earned tremendous kudos as the fight choreographer of the bus scene in Marvel’s recent “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” The scene took nearly a year to plan and execute, and serves to demonstrate Simu Liu’s previously-hidden skills to an open-mouthed Awkwafina, and has since been released by Marvel as a standalone YouTube clip.

Cheng is now hard at work trying to shape the next Asian superhero as action director, stunt coordinator and fight choreographer on “Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya,” a live action adaptation of hit Japanese animated property “Saint Seiya.” The film wrapped up shooting last week in Budapest, Hungary.

“We don’t have the same amount of time or available budget as on ‘Shang Chi.’ But the goal is absolutely the same,” Cheng told Variety. “To craft something very unique that is rooted in Asian culture and has universal appeal.

Japanese rock band One Ok Rock was about to embark on a world tour when Covid-19 hit. With the entertainment industry under threat of survival, the band decided to live stream their ‘Field of Wonder’ concert that was viewed simultaneously by 110,000 fans worldwide. This documentary reveals the story behind the massive live stream, through three months of intimate footage in the lead up to the show on October 11, 2020 as well as personal interviews that unravel the history of the members of One Ok Rock and why they came up with this idea.

One Ok Rock’s members are Moriuchi Takahiro, Yamashita Toru, Kohama Ryota and Kanki Tomoya. The band was formed in 2005 and debuted in 2007. Their songs have been featured in all five Rurouni Kenshin live-action movies, including latest theme songs Renegades (Rurouni Kenshin: The Final) and Broken Heart of Gold (Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning).

Launch date: October 21, 2021 exclusively on Netflix.

At a time when viewers around the world remain wary of returning to cinemas, the Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff) once again can’t keep up with local audiences. Demand is so high that viewers are paying enormous sums to get hold of scalped tickets, including more than $300 to see an art house film released more than two decades ago.

The festival sparks an annual online crush as film lovers vie Black Friday-style for its limited tickets the moment they’re released for sale. Siff sold nearly 150,000 tickets within five minutes on the first day of sales in 2019, and more than 100,000 tickets in ten minutes last year, despite occurring as an in-person event just weeks after cinemas reopened for the first time post-covid-19.

With theater capacity still capped at 75%, the event’s 2021 iteration set to run from June 11-20 has proved just as popular, despite the full line-up being announced...