James Mangold on Japanese traditions in ‘The Wolverine.’

Director James Mangold recently opened up to MTV News about setting THE WOLVERINE in Japan and how that influenced many aspects of the film.

“There is a significant amount of Japanese spoken in the movie, and the cast is almost entirely Japanese, so there is this wonderful sense of cross-pollination between a very Western character and a far Eastern culture, and I think it’s very cool and something we haven’t seen so far. I think there is a lot of ways that Japanese film, Japanese fighting, Japanese martial arts have had an effect on this movie and certainly the movie is dripping with Japanese tradition both cinematically, fighting-wise and philosophically as well.

“The wonderful opportunity for me with this film is that 90 percent of it takes place in Japan, and even though other elements remain constant from the other pictures, namely Hugh Jackman, we kind of got our chance to reboot the tone and go a little darker and a little deeper than they’ve gone before with this character. That was exciting for me.”

With the debut of footage and the trailer in February, Mangold says he hopes the film marketing goes with a “less is more” approach, saying “For me, I’m not the marketing department of Fox, but for my own tastes, less is more. You have a character that’s a bit of a given, you know this guy. Hugh is so good in this role. My point of view is ‘save as much as you can,’ but we will be lifting our skirt and offering a peek or two, certainly in the months to come.”