Karasawa Toshiaki to star in the new movie "In The Hero"

Karasawa Toshiaki will be taking on the lead role in the movie "In The Hero" where he plays Honjo Wataru, the leading suit actor in the film industry who adores Bruce Lee. This is Karasawa's first leading role in a novel since the "20th Century Boys" trilogy 5 years ago. In order to prepare for the role, Karasawa started action training last September and filming will begin in February.

Although Karasawa started out in the entertainment industry as a member of the Toei Action Club, he was never in a Toei movie until now. As he turns 50 this year, he feels that it's an uncanny coincidence that he was approached for this movie which shows the lives of suit actors and how they give youths across the world dreams through the action heroes they play. Karasawa recounted that he was a suit actor for about 5 years since he was 16 and had suffered various injuries such as sprains and bone fractures before moving on to other positions such as extras, costumes and lighting. As such, being someone in a backstage role for so long, he feels that he can understand the feelings of the production staff and the suit actors. However, the training was so tough that he said that there were actions which he thought he could do but his body wouldn't do his bidding. As such, he "complained" that it would have been better if the role came at least 5 years earlier so that he would have an easier time doing the actions.

As for having to imitate Bruce Lee's actions, Karasawa said that it wouldn't be a problem since he already knew Lee's actions since he was in Primary 4. Moreover, he remembered all the English lines Lee had said after recording them and listening to the record repeatedly when he was a kid. Karasawa hopes to do all the action scenes himself without a stuntman but doesn't know if it will be dangerous at all though.

"In The Hero" will be shown in cinemas from this autumn.

Source: Eiga.com