''New Rose Hotel'' is a 1998 American

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and c ...

erotic

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

co-written and directed by

Abel Ferrara Abel Ferrara (born July 19, 1951) is an American filmmaker, known for the provocative and often controversial content in his movies and his use of neo-noir imagery and gritty urban settings. A long-time independent filmmaker, some of his best kn ...

and starring Christopher Walken,

Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, t ...

and

Asia Argento Asia Argento (; born Aria Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento; 20 September 1975) is an Italian actress and filmmaker. The daughter of filmmaker Dario Argento, she has had roles in several of her father's features and achieved mainstream success with ...

. It is based on

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, hi ...

story Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British ...

of the same name.

Plot

Fox (Walken) and X (Dafoe) are Tokyo based corporate extraction specialists, half headhunters, half kidnappers, who specialize in helping R&D scientists relocate from corporations who would rather see them dead than working for their competitors. Fox is obsessed with one Hiroshi (

Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese visual artist, character designer, illustrator, a scenic designer for theatre and film, and a costume designer. He first came into prominence in the late 1960s working on the anime adaptation of ''Speed Racer''. Amano later became ...

) a paradigm-shattering super-genius who is currently working for Maas, the corporation who crippled him. To that end, Fox and X employ Sandii (Argento), a " Shinjuku-girl", or small-time hustler/call girl, to help "persuade" Hiroshi to defect to Hosaka, another corporation to which Fox is somewhat warmer. Fox is responsible for brokering the deal with Hosaka, Sandii for getting Hiroshi to fall in love with her and defect to a Hosaka lab in Marrakech, and X is responsible for teaching Sandii how to make Hiroshi melt. Sandii disappears, Fox commits suicide, and X retreats to the safest place he knows, the New Rose Hotel, a derelict capsule hotel.

Cast

* Christopher Walken as Fox *

as X *

as Sandii *

Annabella Sciorra Annabella Gloria Philomena Sciorra ( , ; born March 29, 1960) is an American actress. She came to prominence with her film debut in '' True Love'' (1989), earning an Independent Spirit nomination for Best Female Lead. Subsequent projects include ...

as Madame Rosa *

John Lurie John Lurie (born December 14, 1952) is an American musician, painter, actor, director, and producer. He co-founded the Lounge Lizards jazz ensemble; has acted in 19 films, including ''Stranger than Paradise'' and '' Down by Law''; has composed ...

as Distinguished Man *Kimmy Suzuki as Asian Girl #1 *Miou as Asian Girl #2 *

as Hiroshi *

Gretchen Mol Gretchen Mol (born November 8, 1972) is an American actress and former model. She is known for her role as Gillian Darmody in the HBO series ''Boardwalk Empire'' (2010–2014). She also appeared in the films ''Rounders'' (1998), ''Celebrity'' ( ...

as Hiroshi's Wife *

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto i ...

as Hosaka Executive

Production

Edward R. Pressman had owned the film rights to '' New Rose Hotel'' since the late 1980s. Before Ferrara got involved,

Kathryn Bigelow Kathryn Ann Bigelow (; born November 27, 1951) is an American filmmaker. Covering a wide range of genres, her films include '' Near Dark'' (1987), '' Point Break'' (1991), '' Strange Days'' (1995), '' K-19: The Widowmaker'' (2002), ''The Hurt Loc ...

was originally set to direct. Zoë Tamerlis Lund wrote the first draft of the script in 1996. According to Ferrara, both Virginie Ledoyen and Chloë Sevigny were considered for the role of Sandii. Ferrara also claims that Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered for the role of Fox.Cryptekeeper 044 Abel Ferrara/New Rose Hotel
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Asia Argento made a documentary about Ferrara, titled ''Abel/Asia'' (1998), during the making of the film. Ferrara said he fired a lot of the crew members of the film; some of them were longtime collaborators of Ferrara's, such as film composer

Joe Delia Joseph Delia (born October 11, 1948) is an American singer, musician, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. He is the lead vocalist and keyboardist of the eponymous blues rock band Joe Delia & Thieves, after previously touring as a se ...

Release

The film opened October 1, 1999 at the Cinema Village Triplex in New York City and grossed $5,147 in its opening weekend and $21,521 in total.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 19%, based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 31 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

References

External links

* * *
Abel Ferrara on the making of the film
on YouTube {{William Gibson 1990s science fiction thriller films 1998 films American science fiction thriller films Cyberpunk films American erotic thriller films Films based on short fiction Films directed by Abel Ferrara William Gibson 1990s science fiction films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films