Sakaguchi Tak Celebrates His Birthday Ahead Of Next Month's Filming For RE:BORN

It's been a while since we last heard much of anything about director Shimomura Yuji's latest action production, Re:Born, following a small batch of pre-production videos with longtime friend, lead actor and action star Sakaguchi Tak in training. The film is setting up to be Sakaguchi's final feature film after spending the last few years stating the possibility of his retirement since his eclectic career in Japanese action cinema took off at the top of the new millenium having worked on quite a few films with Shimomura on such titles as Versus, Aragami and Death Trance.

That said, it was Sakaguchi's 40th birthday on Sunday, and specifically among other things, it also meant receiving his own copy of the script, according to a Facebook post on Sunday in which Shimomura also included the art you now see on this page - one of two pieces of early promo art for the film so far. There aren't any details being made about the plot as of yet, although we have to go on right now is the close-quarters style of combat in which the choreography appears to be taking shape with CQC instructor and expert, Inagawa Yoshitaka.

At any rate, pre-production appears to have been going very well with production officially set to commense within the first ten days of April. Japanese stunt companies Worsal and U'den Flame Works are behind this exciting new project in what will otherwise service a hearty farewell for a beloved action star whose contributions to the indie scene and festivals and cult Asian cinema fans around the world will surely be never forgotten.

Re:Born is coming. Shimomura is ready, and so are we. And by all means, happy birthday Sakaguchi-san!

Stick around for more details!

Special thanks to Marc Walkow for contributing to this article.