"Death Trance" DVD Artwork
Twitch reports on the possible retirement of Japanese action star Tak Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi rose to fame with the 2001 cult favorite Versus, a movie that managed to combine the low-budget charms of Evil Dead-like horror with blistering martial arts and gunplay. The actor later scored another cult hit with Battlefield Baseball, but has most recently hitched his wagon to the Sushi Typhoon production company.
He’s been behind and in front of the camera, serving as fight choreographer on movies like Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl. A retrospective on Sakaguchi’s career will be playing at a cinema in Tokyo in early April; the event was announced via a press release that also mentions Tak Sakaguchi retiring from the world of acting.
Sakaguchi’s own management company denies his retirement but it seems likely that Sakaguchi will at least continue to work behind the camera on future projects, whether it’s as a director or fight choreographer. Time will tell if we’ve seen the last of the man as an action star.
Update: Looks like rumors of Tak Sakaguchi’s early retirement were highly exaggerated. Recently, the actor let it be known that he is working on Death Trance II. The original Death Trance was released in 2005 and served as an off-the-wall blend of a fantasy setting with martial arts and gunplay. It wasn’t quite up to Versus standards but the film is still generally well-regarded by action fans, so a sequel is definitely something to get excited about!
BREAKING NEWS: The magazine Monster Attack Team broke the news via Facebook that Tak Sakaguchi is indeed retiring from acting. It’s unsure what this means for the fate of his recently announced role in Death Trance II.
