OSMOZE x HIFANA

Death on Wheels

Meet Alexandre OSMOZE Brakha… Art Director, Director, and Visual Artist extraordinaire. Originally from Marseille, France, OSMOZE now makes his home in Japan. I’ve personally known OSMOZE for more than 15 years and his work never ceases to amaze me. There’s a saying that we artist live by… ‘You’re Only As Good As Your Last Project’. OSMOZE proves this saying time and time again.

OSMOZE is back with an IRIE new project that demands our attention… Death on Wheels. In his words…

“When 3 bikers try to escape after a mysterious robbery ordered by an old Yakuza godfather, they are took targeted by agents of INTERPOL and a mysterious black-clad rider.

It is after a game of hide-and-seek, murders and epic races through the landscape of Japan, that all of these gangsters and the deadly black rider meet each other in a final and violent showdown.”

– OSMOZE

Death on Wheels is a psychological slasher and fantastic feature film. It wants to be a movie narratively and visually strong with several levels. Mixing action horror, fantastic and gangster movie codes, Death on Wheels is the bridge between a western storytelling and Japanese sense of the suspense and action. The concept behind Death on Wheels is to create an animated stylized universe for young adult and adult.
Death on Wheels is a tribute to the hit series, ‘The Twilight Zone’, and other thrillers of the 80’s, exploring the western pop culture with an assumed touch of Japanese sub-cultures. The atmosphere is really dark, heavy and disturbing in order to play with classic codes of this kind of movies.

In this movie, the intention is to talk about a deeper issue than it seems with the graphic style of Death on Wheels, which is graphically radically different. OSMOZE talks about free will, the conscious and the subconscious, the duality, inside everyone, the goal is to use a thriller story to talk about something deeper. Creating a contrast between the action scenes and the deepness of the characters and their feelings. Location is a main character in this project, from the ocean coast to the mountains of Japan. Death on Wheels shows a large panel of amazing landscapes; a contemplative and wonderful road trip which contrasts with the violence and the surrealism of the action scenes.

HIFANA

Death on Wheels features music by HIFANA, the breakbeats duo KEIZOmachine! & JUICY who have been active since 1998. HIFANA has always been known for their original and creative live performances, during which they cut beats with real-time samplers (MPC) without using any programmed sequences, while at the same time incorporating live scratching and percussion. On the other hand, in their recorded music, they make heavy use of programmed sounds and sequences to make HIFANA sounds. Their first full album ‘Fresh Push Breakin’, was released on November 19th, 2003 and created a buzz in music reviews. Their music video ‘Fatbros’, included in this album, won the Best CG / Animation Video Awards in the SPACE SHOWER TV MUSIC VIDEO AWARDS 04. In July 2005, HIFANA released its 2nd full Album ‘Channel H’ (CD+DVD) which includes 15 songs and 13 music videos. The music video ‘Wamono’ won the Japan Media Arts Festival’s Excellence Prize that year. Together, HIFANA and Space Shower TV later released a DVD called ‘Zamurai TV’, a special TV program including performances of Japan’s most talented hip-hop artists including HIFANA, GAGLE, AFRA, TUCKER, Leyona and more. One of HIFANA’s characteristics is its wide range of activities as artists. Beyond the confines of music, their visual products have also received many awards internationally. HIFANA’s own label ‘Nampooh’ has for years released the battle breaks vinyl series called ‘Sound Touchable’ and organized parties in Japan under the name ‘Zamurai’.

Death on Wheels Trailer:

WATCH | Official Death On Wheels Trailer

Official Websites:

OSMOZE | PinkRabbitCorp.com

HIFANA | Hifana.com

HIFANA on Spotify:

Follow | HIFANA on Spotify