Sunday, November 30, 2014

"HERO" to have a movie version next summer

"HERO" will be back as a new movie next summer as a continuation of its second drama series shown this year. The new movie which is due to be shown in cinemas from 18 July 2015, will still feature Kimura Takuya as the unconventional prosecutor Kuryu Kohei as well as the heroine in the second series Kitagawa Keiko and will bring back the original drama series' heroine Matsu Takako and feature new names in the cast lineup including Sato Koichi as a rival of Kuryu. Filming begins at the end of this month.

This time, Kuryu will be investigating a case related to a foreign country's embassy. However, due to the lack of rights to investigate the embassy and its diplomats, any wrong move may escalate into a major issue thus making Kuryu face his biggest crisis so far in his career.

Source: Sponichi

4 comments:

junny said...

My first reaction was "not again", and I can't say I'm looking forward to this. I tried a couple of episodes of Hero 2014 and it wasn't too bad, but just didn't have the feel of the original (besides, I really liked Abe Hiroshi, Otsuka Nene and Matsu Takako in their respective roles).

Now that Matsu is pregnant, I wonder if she'll back out of the movie? Or maybe she's done filming her parts?

Chiaki said...

Junny, I thought I was the only one who felt the same way as you did! I could only sit through the first episode of Hero 2014 and just couldn't bring myself to continue. It just didn't feel the same.

Matsu is said to be taking her maternity leave after the filming for the movie wraps up. Since she's already six months' pregnant, the belly must be showing by now so maybe her involvement in the movie will be limited and there should be some explaining on her character's marital status. What's likely is that the romantic relationship between Kuryu and Amamiya will probably be gone in the movie version.

junny said...

Well, then that's even less reason for me to watch this movie. I loved the Kuryu-Amamiya dynamic, but if they're going to change the nature of that (and I don't think she was mentioned in Hero 2014?), then that's a no from me.

It seems producers are just keen to continue milking a series that should have been left well alone. Surely there are other oddball professionals who haven't yet been done to death.

And isn't Kimura tired of being typecast?

Chiaki said...

Kimura was said to be against the idea of doing sequels all along no matter how well his dramas did in the past. However, I think that when Hero 2014 came along, it signified a change in his mindset because his dramas in recent years did not do so well especially in terms of critical reviews. What's more mind-boggling is, Hero 2014 may have done well in terms of ratings when compared to most dramas but it's still far from his heyday and certainly doesn't warrant a sequel. However, I didn't see the drama series so I suspect the ending could have a cliffhanger which needs to be "explained" in the movie.