Cult/Horror
The Burning Buddha Man
79 min
Not Currently Available on todoiF
There is a series of Buddha statue thefts in Kyoto. Beniko, a high school girl, gets the Buddha statue at her family’s temple stolen and has her parents killed at the same time. Beniko hears from Enju, her parents’ friend, that a robbery group called SEADDATTHA is the one who killed her parents, and feels the strong urge for vengeance. Enju offers Beniko to live with him since she has no place to go. She wanders into Enju’s secret room and meets an ugly creature that looks like a fusion of her parents and Buddha statue…
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
This movie has its origins from the figure “Moebutsu” the toy designer Leo Anzai was creating at the time. When the idea of making a movie out of this figure came up, Mr. Anzai approached me even though I had just graduated from college and had not yet begun working.
I had been interested in the gekimation technique since I was a student and had made two short films before, so I decided to make the film using gekimation.
Gekimation has its origins in “Yokai den Nekome kozo” (Cat Eyed Boy), which was written by Kazuo Umezu, a manga artist, when I was a university student.
When I first encountered this technique I thought, “If I use gekimation, I can utiliize both the pictures I’ve been drawing and my love of movies in my work.” I still remember how excited I was!
