Kitagawa Keiko & Mukai Osamu team up again in TV Asahi drama SP "Kuroi Jukai"

Kitagawa Keiko will be starring in the new TV Asahi drama SP "Kuroi Jukai" (The Black Sea of Trees) which will be shown this spring. This is her first drama appearance since she got married to DAIGO on 11 January and her first attempt at a Matsumoto Seicho novel's drama adaptation. "Kuroi Jukai" which was published in 1960, was last adapted 11 years ago and had 5 prior drama/movie versions to date. In this current version, the time setting was changed to the current era. Filming began at various locations such as Omachi City in Nagano Prefecture, around the same time when Kitagawa got married.

Kitagawa plays the lead character Kasahara Shoko who suspects that her elder sister's death was not an accident and tries to find out the truth by working as a contract worker in the news agency where the latter had worked at prior to her death. While investigating her sister's case, people who had a part to play in it are found dead one after another. She will be working together with Mukai Osamu who will be playing Yoshii, a mysterious news reporter who helps her with the investigation. Kitagawa and Mukai last worked together in the 2011 movie "Paradise Kiss" when they were still both single but Kitagawa is married now while Mukai is already a father of one after marrying Kuninaka Ryoko in 2014. They revealed that it was fun to catch up with each other after all these years and they both felt that they wouldn't have expected their lives to have changed so much in a couple of years at that time when they first worked together.

Co-stars also include Sawamura Ikki who is a pediatrician suspected to be involved in Shoko's elder sister's death, Koike Eiko and Asou Yumi.

Source: Sanspo / Yomiuri Hochi