Spy Sorge (2003) [2 disc set]

historical epic
directed bY : Masahiro Shinoda
featuring : Ian Glen - Masahiro Motoki - Kipped Shiina - Takaya Kawikawa - Toshiya Nagasawa
running time : 3 hours 2 minutes
audio : Japanese & English - subtitle : English

The Richard Sorge saga has long held endless interest for Japanese audiences. A Russion spy pretending to be a good Nazi in wartime Tokyo, Sorge carried down with him a number of Japanese, including the newspaper reporter who was his major informant. The story has been novelize and dramatized, and a number of films have beeen made.

This new one is directed by the last of the Nouvell Vague Japonaise directros, Masahiro Shinoda, remembered now mainly for the 1969 "Double Suicide." He has said he wanted to make this film for 30 years, that it is his last one and that in it he is staking his all. A difficulty is that his all is not what it once was. Always only as good his script, he had for the 1969 film the noted poet Taeko Tomioka to adapt the dialogue and the famed composer Toru Takemitsu to place it. For "Spy Sorge". he has only studio writers and himself.