A couple of months on from the news that Samuel L. Jackson was aboard, anime adaptation Kite** has added two new cast members and a new director to its roster. India Eisley and Callan McAuliffe will play significant roles in the exuberantly violent live-action remake. And following the tragic recent death of David R. Ellis, it's now Ralph Ziman who'll be calling the shots.
The original anime, replete with copious gore and very dodgy sex, involves a young girl whose parents are murdered, who is adopted and turned into an assassin and sex slave by the corrupt detectives on the case. It's sort of like** Hanna crossed with Lilya 4Ever**.
How much of that source will translate to the new version remains to be seen, but Variety's synopsis gives us, "a young woman living in a failed state after the financial collapse, where a corrupt security force profits on the trafficking of young women. When her policeman father is killed, she vows to track the murderer down with the help of his ex-partner."
Eisley is our young woman then (Sawa in the anime), with McAuliffe presumably a version of Oburi, "the childhood friend of the girl who comes to her rescue," it says here. Because assassins who use exploding bullets still need rescuing occasionally.
Eisley is no stranger to comicbook action, having played Kate Beckinsale's vamp/werewolf hybrid daughter in last year's Underworld: Awakening. She's also the young Angelina Jolie in the upcoming Maleficent. McAuliffe meanwhile, is the young Gatsby in Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby, and played Sam in the rather good I Am Number Four. Ziman is a music video director with a few features under his belt, including The Zookeeper, with Sam Neill, and Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema.
Jackson said in December that shooting would be taking place in Johannesburg. With the cast coming together, the start date is apparently looming.