A new trailer was recently released for Netflix’s live-action film, Ride or Die. The trailer features, among other things, the two leads apparently singing along to Yui’s 2007 hit song CHE.R.RY. The film will come out on 15 April.
Netflix has been very active in Japanese pop culture lately, and it seems to have grabbed hold of an interesting one this time. Instead of an anime series or a classic kaiju franchise, Ride or Die takes a manga and turns it into what looks like live-action film award bait. The film is adapted from Gunjo, by Ching Nakamura, which ran from 2007 to 2012 (it got canceled once).
To be honest, I wasn’t familiar with Gunjo before I researched Ride or Die, and the movie does sound about right. In the manga, a pair of women are on the run from the police. If it sounds a little bit like a bloodier version of Thelma & Louise, and that’s not an insult. That film was nominated for a bunch of Oscars and won one.
In any case, you can see why they opted for live-action instead of anime. It’s not that anime can’t handle heavy topics or adult subjects, because it clearly can. But this really looks amazing in live-action.