Forty-seven-year-old filmmaker Kazuaki Kiriya is as famed for being a tall, flamboyant loudmouth — he married Japanese diva Hikaru Utada when she was 16 years old (and he was 35) — as he is for making sleek CG-heavy extravaganzas that never manage to do well at the box office. Now Kiriya has directed his first English-language Hollywood production, "Last Knights."
Starring Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen, and made on the kind of budget many Japanese filmmakers can only dream of (rumored to be around ¥5 billion), "Last Knights" opens on Nov. 14 — more than seven months after its U.S. debut. Even a cursory glance tells you this is a distinctly Kiriya production: It oozes gorgeous visuals and nonsensical plot lines.
"I don't know, the Japanese movie industry doesn't seem to like me very much," Kiriya says, in excellent English. "But then, people always thought I was strange here — I was this crazy kid, and still am."