Miike’s episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror serie will not air.
Via kinejapan
Takashi Miike was recently hired by the american Showtime cable channel to participate in a serie called Masters Of Horror. The serie include famous horror movie directors such as John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon, Dario Argento and Tobe Hooper.
Looks like Miike’s episode won’t get air time due to its extreme content.
Some folk at the tvbarn2 mailing list reported on a q&a with Showtime’s Robert Greenblat about the whole thing :
QUESTION: In front. I wonder if you could talk about the episode of
“Masters of Horror” directed by Takashi Miike that you guys have apparently
withdrawn as unsuitable for even premium cable viewers.
ROBERT GREENBLATT: Sure. Yeah. I don’t know if people know him as a
filmmaker, but he tends to make films that are really extreme in terms of
their visual depiction of torture and violence. And the episode came out
just really, really strong. And rather than try to figure out how to cut it
and make it work for us, we decided it’s probably better not to butcher
Takashi’s vision and, instead, not air it, and they’ll put it out on DVD.
QUESTION: Was this not foreseeable?
ROBERT GREENBLATT: You know, we sort of said, “Let’s see. Let’s see how
edgy it gets and how extreme he wants to go.” And we kind of gave him the
freedom to film it, and then we decided to take a look at it and evaluate
it after the fact.
- 
January 25th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Well, that’s certainly lame. They ask Miike to do it and then they say no because he did it too well (haha right? :P). That’s suprising that anything would be too extreme for Showtime. I never thought they had decency standards anyway.
February 23rd, 2006 at 10:04 am
I certianly hope that the Miike episode somehow sees the light of day! (Hint hint any Showtime employees who might happen to post it as a torrent or something, not that I condone such things…)
(not to say that I don’t not condone them though….)
(oh heck, someone just hijack the Miike and give it to those who will appreciate it!)
I think a proper Nasty Email To Mr. Greenblat (who obviously lives under a very protected rock of some knind… doesn’t know if many people know who Miike is indeed!) Campaign and the other dim-wits at Showtime pleading for expidited release of the uncut episode is in order. But then again, I’m kind of a hot head…
February 23rd, 2006 at 11:00 pm
Well quoting Greenblat:
“…we decided it’s probably better not to butcher
Takashi’s vision and, instead, not air it, and they’ll put it out on DVD.”
So look forward for the dvd release to watch the uncut Miike episode.