2K RESTORATION
SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREMIERE
Director: Macoto Tezka
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Rating: NC16 (Some Drug Use)
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Full Synopsis
In 1985, musician and TV personality Haruo Chicada made a soundtrack to a movie that did not exist. A then 22-year old Macoto Tezka (son of Osamu Tezuka) took on the task of making a feature film based on these songs. The result of this odd experiment is The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, a wildly campy rock-and-roll musical starring some of Japan’s most famous musicians at the time.
Rival underground musicians Kan and Shingo (played by Kan Takagi of Tokyo Bravo/Tiny Panx Organization and Shingo Kubota of Sunny Kubota/Crystal Vacation) are talent-scouted by enigmatic producer Atomic Minami (played by legendary singer Kiyohiko Ozaki), with promises of fame and fortune, on the condition that they set aside their differences and perform together. As the duo embarks on a meteoric rise to superstardom, a hallucinatory world awaits them—replete with surreal car chases, zombie attacks and infectiously catchy tunes.
Restoration Notes
The 2K restoration of The Legend of the Stardust Brothers was undertaken by London-based production and distribution company, Third Window Films, and completed in 2018.
Released in 1985, the film was a commercial and critical failure at the time of its release, and disappeared into obscurity until 2014. Most of the original materials were lost, including the original 16mm negatives. Various sections from the surviving 35mm positive prints were utilised in order to assemble the best quality version. The film was then colour graded.
Since the original audio tapes were not in good condition, the soundtrack was remastered from a surviving promotional vinyl record. As a result, the songs in the film possess a fuller sound than the rest of the film’s audio.
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