Japanese film director Takashi Miike swaps his usual horror fare for girl superhero drama Police X Heroine Lovepatrina!

Miike says he took the same approach to his latest film and its young girl fan base as he has to the gory horror films that have won him many devotees

Though this departure from his usual fare may surprise some, Miike finds it strange that directors of one genre of films would never try to spread their wings

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Takashi Miike has stepped out of horror with his latest film Police X Heroine Lovepatrina!, a family-friendly movie about a group of superhero teen girls. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 6:20pm, 29 Apr 2021Updated: 6:20pm, 29 Apr 2021

Japanese director Takashi Miike has built up a cult following around the world over the past two decades with an oeuvre of horror films, often featuring extreme violence.

So it might appear at first that his latest release, a family-friendly movie about a group of teenage girls who transform into a frilly-dressed superhero troupe, is a strange turn for a man once dubbed by Time magazine a “master of the grotesque”.

But the 60-year-old director of fright classics such as Audition (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001) disagrees. Miike said he finds it “strange from my viewpoint” that directors of horror and other genre films tend to shoot only those kinds of films. It may be good to have a creative “policy”, but there is also a danger of being trapped in it and ending up feeling “stifled”, he added.

Police X Heroine Lovepatrina! was expected to be released in Japanese cinemas on Thursday, but it has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A prolific director who has produced over 100 films, videos and television shows since his 1991 debut, largely in the horror genre, he said he took the same approach to his latest film and its young girl fan base as he has to movies for devotees of his edge-of-your-seat gore fests: in both cases, his concern is character development; genre is a secondary consideration.