Like everybody knows, Ledger was working on the new Terry Gilliam movie, which is produced by independent french producer Samuel Hadida (Resident Evil, Domino, Silent Hill, The Perfume, True Romance... and Onimusha !). The shooting of Dr Parnassus was stopped which forced Hadida to push back Onimusha a first time. But very soon the schedule of Takeshi Kaneshiro didn't matched anymore with the new shooting dates of Onimusha, because - as many asian actors - he shoots as many movies he can each year... and so was for the japanese cast of the movie. It was maybe possible to find another solution, another shooting dates for all the asian actors and Emily de Ravin, but there was still a problem for the casting of the second leading part of the movie, Jacob, which was american : the upcoming actors strike in June which is still not resolved !

All those problems put together leaded to one choice : Onimusha's shooting is postponed to an unknown date.