The official website for the new live-action adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack manga revealed the new cast and the film's June 30 release date on Friday. Marika Matsumoto plays a patient suffering from “Lion Face Disease”, a disease that causes the patient's bones to swell and thus their face gradually resembles a lion. The image below shows Matsumoto as the patient in three faces: the before face (center), the face after the disease progressed (left), and the horse mask she wore to hide her features (right ).
Image via Black Jack live action Twitter
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The film will be released this year and stars Issei Takahashi as the main character.
The cast includes Shizuka Ishibashi, Takayuki Yamauchi, Eiji Okuda, Tetsuya Chiba, Ryōsuke Mikata, Takashi Yamanaka, Kai Inowaki, Isao Hashizume, Shōhei Uno and Taichi Saotome.
Hideo Jōjō will direct the film.
Hideo Jōjō is directing the film and Yoshiko Morishita is writing the script. Takashi Ohmama is composing music. Isao Tsuge is designing the costumes and supervising character designs.
Tezuka's original Black Jack manga focuses on a brilliant doctor who practices without a license. Tezuka published the manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine from 1973 to 1984. Osamu Tezuka's official website describes the manga:
This is a medical drama in which the main character is an unlicensed but talented surgeon, Black Jack. Blessed with excellent surgical techniques, Black Jack always miraculously saves the lives of seriously ill patients and those near death. But he always demanded a hefty price for his surgery, which is why his presence was rejected by the medical community.
Black Jack lives quietly in a clinic in the desolate wilderness with his assistant, Pinoko, whose life he saved. Patients that other doctors had turned away came to see him every day; he represents their last hope.
The manga has inspired many anime adaptations as well as spin-offs from other creators. This manga has inspired several Japanese live-action adaptations, including a 1977 film, a 1981 series, a 1996 video, a 2000 special, and a movie. especially different from 2011.
The manga also inspired a Chinese live-action adaptation. Beijing Enlight Pictures announced the adaptation in 2020 at a press conference announcing new works in production. Beijing Enight Pictures' subsidiary Coloroom Pictures is producing the work.
“Black Jack Kikai no Shinzō-Heartbeat Mark II”(Black Jack Mechanical Heart-Heartbeat Mark II, a new 32-page AI-produced film partly produced by the Black Jack one-shot Manga, debuted in Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine on November 22. A previous project “TEZUKA2020″ launched a manga titled “Paidon” in February 2020, which used AI to learn and imitate Tezuka's style.
Source: TV Asahi, Natalie Comics