The Killing of a Japanese Bookie

To dare call this a "remake" of the Cassavetes masterpiece is bolder than anything the film had to offer. Only the profound ignorance of anyone attempting to recapture the magic of the film could have failed so spectacularly in every aspect of filmmaking. The film looks like it was shot without lights on a potato. The writing that wasn't blatantly stolen was almost as embarrassing as the "actors" (aka friends of whatever idiot prouder funded this garbage) "acting." The director tried to do his best to rip shots from the film, but without understanding the purpose or drive of any of the shots he only succeeded in making the film look like a cheap youtube video submitted in hopes of getting into a technical camera school.

I feel at ease with the film, however, knowing the makers of the film are at least delusional and at most mentally incompetent for life. If the film itself wasn't clear enough, their inane promotion for top tier festivals is downright embarrassing. I sincerely assume they enjoy Cassavetes and did try to "honor" the legendary filmmaker. Unfortunately, when we give the filmicly incompetent a voice they generally use it to line the walls with feces. Case in point, this film. The good news is, you will never see it. It will not be screened at festivals, it wont get distribution and the filmmakers (soon to go back to waiting tables) will forever have a black stain as their only mark on their movie report card.

When I heard this movie was going to be made I was excited because I enjoyed the original. I knew someone who was cast to do the movie so that made it even better. Then i visited the set and realized that they were almost doing a shot for shot remake and were watching the original and then writing the script as they went. I figured I was just there on a bad day but it remained that way unfortunately. From the looks of this, the director and producers are huge fans of TKOCB and tried to pay homage to Cassavetes but they just fell way short on this one. I really would like to see the movie but I don't it will ever be released unless its strait to youtube or something like that. They didn't have money to pay the actors for time and travel so the casting director, who in somewhere along the lines became the co-director after shooting commenced, promised them IMDb credits and promised them that it would be shown at some major festivals. This film isn't going to be shown at any festival anytime soon. I only wished the movie was released because I was hoping the finished product was different from my perception but its safe to assume that i'm not far off. Hopefully, Tarantino or a like minded director picks up the rights to TKOCB and does it right one day.