Takashi Miike solves God's Puzzle

It’s not every day we get to write that Takashi Miike, the man who made Audition and Ichi The Killer is slipping across the genre borders again for a romantic comedy. A science fiction romantic comedy.

But it’s true – he’s teamed with producer Haruki Kadokawa to make Kamisama no Puzzle – or God’s Puzzle. It’s the tale of twin brothers (both to be played by Juon 2’s Hayato Ichihara), who are taking very different paths through college. One is a perfect student, the other a lazy loser. But they’re both dazzled by a beautiful, brilliant girl (Mitsuki Tanimura) who joins them to unearth the secrets of the universe, and construct one of their own.

This story is also useful for something we don’t usually get to print – interesting origin stories from producers, as Kadokawa told reporters he got to idea to work on adapting Shinji Kimoto’s novel while he was, er, in prison on drugs charges. Apparently, he saw “a strong comic element in the material" that is just crying out for "a large helping of CG effects." Oh, and he saw a nine-foot-tall man with a hippo for a hand. But we think that might have been the narcotics.

Miike will start working on the film this week for a summer 2008 release in Japan. If we were cynical, we’d say we can’t wait with the remake…