Movie News


Warner Bros. Takes on TOKYO UNDERGROUND

By: Jarrod Sarafin
Date: Thursday, August 07, 2008
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Warner Bros. has picked up the rights to Robert Whiting's Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan and has hired Frank Baldwin to adapt the true-life crime novel.  Dan Lin is producing via his Warners-based Lin Pictures along with veteran producers Harry and Mary Jane Ufland.

Plot Concept: Published in 2000, the book centers on Nick Zappetti, an Italian-American from East Harlem who was part of the U.S. occupation forces sent to Japan after World War II. Believing that Tokyo offered certain opportunities, Zappetti had a failed stint as a wrestler, participated in a fumbled diamond heist and was deported. But he returned illegally and opened a pizza joint, which in the mid-'60s became the center of Tokyo's nightlife, and for the next 15 years, he became an integral part in the yakuza's rise to power.



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Comments/Responses
1
WISEGUY562 • Aug 07, 2008, 08:31am •
Sounds interesting enough. Haven't seen too many quality yakuza films since Black Rain.

fft5305 • Aug 07, 2008, 09:29am •
I was thinking we hadn't had too many failed wrester to failed jewel thief to illicit pizza joint owner movies since.... well, ever. Hmmm. The untapped market.

aegrant • Aug 07, 2008, 10:17am •
To be honest, this does sound kind of interesting

captm0rgan77 • Aug 07, 2008, 01:45pm •
This does sound cool. I can imagine that it might piss off a lot of Japanese people though. I don't know how the would receive a movie depicting the start of the most feared gang in their country from an Italian-American.

1
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