The Magic Hour

The Magic Hour (2008)

ザ・マジックアワー

A hustler who gets in trouble with a gang boss in the port town of Sukago agrees to make good with the don by putting him in contact with a mysterious hitman — an assassin the hustler has no idea how to contact. Instead, he hires an actor to play the role, though the thespian has no idea what he's getting into.

Date of release
2008-06-07
TMDB
7.5 / 10 (45)
Runtime
2h 16m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Koki Mitani

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $38.2M

The Magic Hour is a 2008 Japanese comedy film written and directed by Kōki Mitani. Set in the fictional port town of Sukago, the film depicts the slapstick that ensues when an unsuccessful actor is turned into a "legendary hit man" by the boss of the town who has his hands on his mistress.

Production

Filming took place from July 21 to September 29, 2007.

The huge set of the fictional port town was created using three studios at Toho Studios in Seijo, Tokyo, and was based on the prostitute district in Billy Wilder's Irma la Douce. As with other Mitani films, the sets for this film were created by production designer Yōhei Taneda, who created a huge fictional cityscape inside the studio. This was called one of the largest set in the history of Japanese film studios.

This film marks film director Kon Ichikawa's last appearance and was dedicated in his memory. (This message can be seen in the end of this film.) In this film, movie director played by Kon Ichikawa is shooting 101 Dark Women (Kuroi Hyaku-ichi-nin no Onna), a parody of Ten Dark Women (Kuroi Ju-nin no Onna) in his lifetime.

There are three short short films within a film.

101 Dark Women (Kuroi Hyaku-ichi-nin no Onna)

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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