Fukushi Sota to star in new movie "Chotto ima kara shigoto yametekuru"

Fukushi Sota will be starring in the new movie "Chotto ima kara shigoto yametekuru" (I will go to quit my job now) which will be directed by Narushima Izuru and due to be shown in cinemas in summer 2017. The movie is based on the same-titled novel by Kitagawa Emi which has sold more than 500,000 copies to date.

The movie features Kudo Asuka in the role of Aoyama Takashi, a young man who has just started his first full-time job and is so stressed by the tough sales targets set by his company and power harassment that he wants to commit suicide by jumping onto a railway track. However, in the nick of time, he is saved by a mysterious man named Yamamoto (Fukushi) who is very cheerful for no reason and keeps speaking Kansai-ben to him. Through their interaction, Aoyama starts to feel the positive energy from Yamamoto rub onto him.

As Fukushi is from Tokyo, he finds having to speak in Kansai-ben a huge challenge for him that his intonation mistakes were frequently pointed out since rehearsals started in March. As a result, the producer Ikeda Hiroyuki once thought of changing all of Yamamoto's lines to the standard speech instead. However, Fukushi made huge improvements by watching the manzai DVDs of the late Yokoyama Yasushi and Nishikawa Kiyoshi at the recommendation of the director and practising his lines repeatedly. Fukushi commented that he hopes that Yamamoto will be an encouraging presence to the young people who are struggling in society through this movie.

Co-stars also include Yoshida Kotaro who plays Aoyama's manager and keeps subjecting the latter to verbal abuse, Kuroki Haru who plays Aoyama's senior at work and Koike Eiko who plays a mysterious woman that knows Yamamoto's past.

Source: Yomiuri Hochi