Parasite Eve (film)

Plot

Kiyomi (Riona Hazuki), the wife of Toshiaki Nagashima (Hiroshi Mikami), is left brain dead after a traffic accident on the day of their first wedding anniversary. Nagashima attempts to make her live again and steals her liver from her corpse. While examining the organ, something from it attacks his assistant Sachiko (Tomoko Nakajima) and turns the assistant into Toshiaki's dead wife. Nagashima later realizes that his dead wife is actually an organization of sentient mitochondria bent on making a new species that will wipe out humanity.

Cast

Production

Parasite Eve is based off the 1995 novel of the same name by Hideaki Sena. Sena had a background in pharmacology and his day job consisted of testing mitochondria with various drugs their ability to convert fatty acids into energy. A television documentary he viewed gave him the idea of the mitochondria having a will of its own and didn't feel like continuing its symbiotic relationship. This was the basis for his novel, which was very popular in Japan and was the first book given the Japan Horror Novel Award.

In 1997, Kadokawa Shoten decided to use its film production side of its business to develop a film version of Parasite Eve. It was the company's first film in over three years after Haruki Kadokawa left in disgrace over a cocaine scandal that stopped the independent producer making films. The film was co-produced by Kadokawa and Fuji TV's Motion Picture Division. The film cost 550 million yen to make and approximately the same to promote ($909,000 total)

The group hired Masayuki Ochiai, who had experience in the early 1990s making television series Night Head for Fuji TV. The screenplay for the film was written by Ryoichi Kimizuka Kimizuka had to re-organize the non-linear approach of Sena's novel and handle the technical terms used within the novel to make it appropriate for a screenplay. Director Masayuki Ochiai stated he was "not really happy with the circumstances I was under when I had to create [Parasite Eve]...First of all I was forced by the producers to make it a love story. There were so many compromises I had to make that it couldn't be a true horror movie."

Release

Parasite Eve was released theatrically in Japan on February 1, 1997 where it was distributed by Toho. The film received a relatively limited theatrical release in Japan and was not widely distributed overseas. Variety projected the film take in 100 million yen ($826, 446) during its five-week run in about 150 Japanese theaters.

The film was released in the United States by A.D. Vision with English subtitles on August 31, 1998.