Opening in 1993, the Shanghai International Film Festival(SIFF) is China’s only A-class international film festival and one of the largest in Asia. SIFF focuses on building an international platform and promoting the Chinese film industry.
Anime studio Sunrise’s latest film Mobile Suit Gundam Gundam Hathaway’s Flash will be featured at the 24th annual SIFF event under their animation category, along with Universal Century Gundam films such as the Mobile Suit Gundam(0079) film trilogy, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation trilogy, and Mobile Suit Gundam Char’s Counterattack. The film festival will commence from June 11 to June 20, 2021.
The other featured animated films include Tomm Moore’s “Irish Folklore Trilogy”, The Secret of Kells(2009), Song of the Sea (2014) and Wolfwalkers (2020), Beauty Water(2020) by Korean director Cho Kyung-hun, Punyakoti(2020) by Ravishankar Venkateswaran, and the French-German-Belgium Yakari, A Spectacular Journey(2020) by Xavier Giacometti.
The Secret of Kells 
Song of the Sea 
Wolfwalkers 
Beauty Water 
Punyakoti 
Yakari, A Spectacular Journey
First in a trilogy of anime films helmed by Shukou Murase, Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash or Hathaway is the official sequel to the 1988 Mobile Suit Gundam Char’s Counterattack movie. Hathaway is currently delayed without a release date due to the state of emergency in Japan to curb COVID-19 infections. The film project serves as the second entry in Sunrise’s U.C. NexT 0100 Project following Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative.The project was announced in November 2018 to celebrate the Gundam 40th anniversary, adapting the Yoshiyuki Tomino-penned novel series of the same name. The novels were originally released from 1989 to 1990, as a follow-up to Tomino’s Char’s Counterattack: Beltorchika’s Childrennovel, published by Kadokawa’s Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko imprint.
Story
The year is U.C. 0105. Twelve years have passed since the end of the second Neo Zeon War (Char’s Rebellion). Even after “the Axis Shock,” which seemed to indicate the future of humanity and the Universal Century, the world is still in a chaotic situation where intermittent military conflicts continue to break out. The Earth Federation government is more corrupt than ever, and its leadership has not only accelerated Earth’s pollution, but also implemented an inhuman “Man Hunting” policy in which civilians are forcibly exiled to outer space.
The anti-Federation government organization “Mafty,” led by someone called “Mafty Navue Erin,” has taken a stand against the corruption of the Earth Sphere. Mafty carries out fierce acts of terrorism, assassinating high officials of the Federation government one after another, but it gains a certain level of support from the populace who are growing more opposed to the Federation government.
The person who calls himself “Mafty” and leads this organization is Hathaway Noa, the son of Bright Noa, an officer of the Earth Federation Forces who once participated in the One Year War. Hathaway himself joined the forces trying to stop Char’s Rebellion. With firsthand knowledge of the ideals and ideologies of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable, he has become a warrior following in their footsteps, and plans to clear a path forward through armed resistance. His destiny, however, is drastically altered as he encounters the Federation Forces officer Kenneth Sleg and a mysterious young beauty named Gigi Andalucia.
Cast
- Kensho Ono as Hathaway Noa
- Junichi Suwabe as Kenneth Sleg
- Reina Ueda as Gigi Andalucia
- Soma Saito as Lane Aime
- Toru Furuya as Amuro Ray
- Kenjiro Tsuda as Gawman Nobile
- Yuki Ishikawa as Emeralda Zubin
- Fukushi Ochiai as Raymond Cain
- Shunsuke Takeuchi as Iram Masam
- Misato Matsuoka as Mihessia Hence
- Chiharu Sawashiro as Kenji Mitsuda
- Atsumi Tanezaki as Mace Flower
- Koichi Yamadera as Hundley Yeoksan
Ergo Proxy and Genocidal Organ’s Shukou Murase is directing the film project, with scripts by Yasuyuki Mutou. Pablo Uchida, Shigeki Kuhara, and Naoyuki Onda serve as the character designers for the films. Hiroyuki Sawano returns from Mobile Suit Gundam entries Unicorn and Narrative as music composer, with rock-band [Alexandros] performing its theme song “Senkou”. The films’ mechanical design team consists of Hajime Katoki, Kimitoshi Yamane, Nobuhiko Genba, and Seiichi Nakatani.
The Blu-ray for the film will be released simultaneously with the premiere at all participating theaters in Japan. The upcoming Gundam film will have standard and limited edition versions priced at 5,000 yen and 12,000 yen respectively.
Source: SIFF
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