Huayi Brothers Media and CKF Pictures would jointly produce “The Mask of the Black Death” from a script by famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Huayi, based in Beijing, and CKF, owned by Chen Kuo-fu, a Taiwanese filmmaker, announced the project last week.
The movie is expected to be ready for exhibition during the weeklong National Day holiday in 2020, Xinhua News Agency reported. The holiday is the second most profitable period to show movies in China, after Spring Festival.
Hollywood Influencer
Kurosawa, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 1951 for “Rashomon,” influenced great Hollywood moviemakers such as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. He is the first Asian to be awarded the Golden Lion.
The Japanese director wrote “The Mask of the Black Death” originally as the second production for a former Soviet studio. It was after his first co-production, “Dersu Uzala” was awarded by the Oscar as Best Foreign Language movie in 1976. It was based on the memoir of a Russian explorer and the first non-Japanese movie of Kurosawa.
Deadly Disease
He wrote the script in the late 1970s of “The Mask of the Black Death,” but he died in 1998 without the script being made into a film. The script was based on “The Masque of the Red Death,” a gothic fiction by American author Edgar All Poe adapted for the movies in 1964 by Roger Corman. The film starred Vincent Price. The story revolves around a prince, along with nobles, who hid inside a castle as protection against a deadly ailment that was killing the masses.
Dread Central noted that several of the scripts of Akira Kurosawa, considered the godfather of Japanese cinema, have been adapted after his death. It includes the movies “After the Rain, The Sea is Watching” and “Nioh.” The translation of “Masque of the Red Death” script is available at The Film Stage.