Oh yeah, "The Wolverine." We sorta forgot about this movie for a brief moment, but with a summer release slated for next year, and with filming slated to get underway in August, we suppose the wheels are going to start turning on this very soon in a big way, and a bunch of new cast members have come on board.
ComingSoon reports that Japanese actors Hiroyuki Sanada ("Lost," "Rush Hour 3," "The Last Samurai"), Hal Yamanouchi ("The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," "Push") and newcomers Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima have all boarded the film. To recap, "3:10 To Yuma" and "Knight & Day" helmer James Mangold will direct the film which he says will be a character driven movie, previously comparing it to "The Outlaw Josey Wales." "Total Recall" writer Mark Bomback did the most recent draft of the script that will find Wolverine suffering from amnesia and searching for answers about his past in the Japanese criminal underworld, where he finds both love and tragedy, and winds up squaring off against Silver Samurai.
So who will play what? Sanada has nabbed the role of Shingen, a Yakuza boss who is the father of Mariko (Okamoto), and forces her to marry another criminal boss, even though she is romantically involved with Wolverine. Shingen then challenges Wolverine to a duel, has him drugged by his assassin Yukio (Fukushima) and nearly kills him. As for Yamanouchi, he'll be playing the vaguely named Yashida, who we presume is part of Shingen's Clan Yashida crime family in some capacity. Of course, that's how it plays out in the comics, but how the characters will be tweaked for the big screen remains to be seen, and officially, Fox is staying mum on any Silver Samurai involvement though, these characters pretty much confirm it.
More is likely to come from this film in the coming weeks. "The Wolverine" will shoot in Australia and Japan and hit theaters on July 26, 2013.
