Thursday, August 31, 2017

Iura Arata & Kurokawa Mei as joint leads in the new movie "Nijuurokuya Machi"

Iura Arata and Kurokawa Mei will be joint leads in the new movie "Nijuurokuya Machi" (Waiting for the 26th night) which is directed by Koshikawa Michio and based on the same-titled novel by Saeki Kazumi. The movie will be shown in cinemas from 23 December this year.

The story features Kurokawa as the character Yumi who lost everything due to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and is now living with her aunt in Iwaki, Fukushima who has a construction company. When she goes to work at a small restaurant owned by Sugitani (Iura), she finds that he has lost his memory for some reason and can't even remember who he is. However, he can still remember how to cook and tries to cope with his fear and loneliness with the help of the people around him. Yumi and Sugitani get increasingly drawn to each other and gradually begin an intimate relationship. As the 2 hour and 2 minute movie contains about 20 minutes worth of intimate scenes, it has been given the classification of R-18 i.e. only those above 18 years old are allowed to watch this.

In preparation for the filming where he plays a chef, Iura worked at a restaurant for a week to learn cooking as he had to tackle difficult scenes such as preparing a puffer fish by himself. The filming was mainly done in Iwaki during January this year. Iura commented that although his character was difficult to play and had his troubles, there were scenes where Sugitani and Yumi had fun such as picking wild flowers. As such, he was glad that he didn't have to pull a long face throughout the whole movie and could show a variety of emotions. As for the intimate scenes, Iura admitted that this was the first time he had to do so many scenes with such intensity and said that he and Kurokawa did their best to meet up to the director's expectations.

On the other hand, Kurokawa said that she was glad to be able to take on this movie as the last work in her 20s. It was great to be able to trust the cast and her co-stars as she focused on her acting and hopes that the public will support this movie when it is released.

Sources: Yomiuri Hochi / Eiga.com

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