In this movie, Domoto plays the character Takasugi Shinsuke, who is the biggest rival of Sakata Gintoki (Oguri) and a very skilled swordsman. He is the leader of Kiheitai, an exclusionist group and regarded as the most dangerous man. During the filming which was already concluded, the two of them had a fierce battle scene which was designed by an action directing team from South Korea at the suggestion of Oguri. It has been 21 years since Domoto acted in an intense action scene like this for his 1995 stage play "Hanakage no Hana - Oishi Kuranosuke no Tsuma". He recounted that it was tough this time especially because of Oguri's height of 1.84m which was 20cm more than his height.
As the director Fukuda Yuichi wanted Domoto to play a baddie this time, he found it very tough and stressful due to Takasugi's popularity among the fans and how he was supposed to play the cool yet pretentious Takasugi which was very different from his real personality. Luckily, through discussions with the director, he was finally able to get through the filming. Domoto and Fukuda had worked together previously in dramas such as FujiTV's 33-pun Tantei and TBS' "Tenma-san ga yuku" so they are quite familiar with each other. Domoto "complained" that Fukuda was making a lot of unreasonable demands of him like how he had been practising to play the shamisen while sitting down for two weeks but was told to do it standing up just two days before the filming. In addition, Domoto "joked" that he wanted to play Elisabeth initially instead of Takasugi.
Meanwhile, announcements on the cast lineup were also made on the same day. Arai Hirofumi will be playing Okada Izou, who is a dangerous figure in the Kiheitai while Sato Jirou will play a strategist in the same group named Takechi Henpeita. Nanao will appear as Kijima Matako who is nicknamed the Red Bullet and can use guns with both hands. Yasuda Ken will play Murata Tetsuya while his younger sister Tetsuko will be played by Hayami Akari. Arai commented that he was wondering why he had no gags to do in this movie since this is a Gintama movie by Fukuda after all but was glad that the action scenes turned out to be very different from the usual sword-fighting scenes in samurai movies. As for Sato who is a regular in Fukuda movies, he said that he thought of this film as Fukuda's first and last "big" production and supported him with this thought in mind. Nanao expressed her worry about how to show the strong visual side of her character and tried her best to challenge herself. In addition, she was impressed by the handmade sexy dresses which had very delicate designs produced for her character. As for Yasuda, he was conscious of the fact that he had to speak louder for his character as depicted in the manga but when he actually started doing it on set, it was tougher than he thought. Hayami revealed that she had gone to a blacksmith factory to see and learn how swords are being forged so as to prepare for her role.
On a related note, the official Twitter page of the movie had accumulated more than 117,000 followers from 1 July to 12 September. In particular, the tweet which Fukuda directed to Oguri at the end of the filming was retweeted 66,000 times and had 108,000 likes.
Sources: Sanspo / Eiga.com / Oricon
There are still more roles to fill up, so I bet they still have another big names to be announced next, I expect Yamada Takayuki who had appeared many times in Fukuda Yuichi's works or maybe Suzuki Ryohei from Hentai Kamen. Perhaps a Gintama real-life adaptation won't be all that bad. I think it's the director himself that will play Elizabeth. Domoto's acting seems interesting but I wonder about the huge height difference.
ReplyDeleteWhen is the release?
ReplyDeleteThere is no concrete announcement date yet as to when the movie is to be screened in Japan other than it's going to be in 2017.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm not familiar with Gintama so I don't know much about the story nor characters. My only concern is that whether they will be too ambitious in putting in too much of the story and too many characters in one movie. If that happens, there is a risk of the story being handled too sloppily and/or the actors' appearance time will be largely limited. I wonder if they could have done two parts instead to allow for more flexibility in these areas.