Oguri Shun to star in Hulu original drama series "Daishou" showing this autumn in US and Japan

Oguri Shun will be starring in the Hulu original drama series "Daishou" (Compensation) which consists of 6 episodes and will be shown in US and Japan at the same time. This marks Oguri's first entry into the overseas market and first drama to be screened via the Internet to which he commented that he's curious to see how the overseas audience will react to this Japanese production and pledged to work hard with his co-stars and staff to put up a good performance.

This drama series is based on the same-titled novel by Ioka Shun who won the 25th Yokomizo Seishi Mystery Award and TV Tokyo Award in 2005 with his book "Itsuka, niji no mukou e". Oguri plays the role of Okuyama Keisuke, a lawyer who suffers from a serious obsessive-compulsive disorder due to his traumatic experience of abuse and betrayal suffered as a child. At that time, his parents were killed during a fire masterminded by his distant relative cum friend Ando Tatsuya. As a result, that led to him being taken in by Tatsuya's family and the beginning of suffering abuse by them. One day, he reunites with Tatsuya, the very person who had been responsible for his plight of losing his family and happiness, when he comes to engage Keisuke as his lawyer for a robbery and murder case. While wondering about Tatsuya's motive in coming to him, Keisuke is torn between taking revenge and fulfilling his duty as a lawyer and embarks on a risky venture to "bury" Tatsuya and stop him from harming society anymore. Although Oguri has played many types of roles to date, this is the first time that he will be playing an emotionally-weak man who is driven to the edge psychologically.

Oguri revealed that when he read the original, his first thought was that this character Keisuke would be very tough to play and confirmed his hunch when the filming actually started. Even outside the filming time, he tried not to think too much about his character but couldn't help it at times.

As for the actor to play the psychopath and Keisuke's childhood friend Tatsuya, it will be Takahashi Tsutomu who is a close friend of Oguri. With regard to their collaboration, Oguri said that Takahashi's presence helped him to concentrate more on the acting especially since he looked as scary as Tatsuya who manipulated others to commit crimes on his behalf and joked that he found Takahashi repulsive at times during the filming just like how Keisuke views Tatsuya,

Co-stars include Fuchikami Yasushi who plays Morota Hisahito, a journalist who is a friend of Keisuke and knew about Tatsuya since their junior high days, Kataoka Reiko who plays Tatsuya's stepmother, Hirata Mitsuru who plays Yoshida Hajime, the psychologist treating Keisuke and Ishibashi Ryo who plays Keisuke's boss. Other actors include Yanagi Erisa, Yanagi Shuntaro and Horibe Keisuke.

The producer Toishi Noriko commented that Oguri was chosen for his ability to take on any role and that given his height, good looks and low-toned voice, would be popular with overseas drama fans.

Sources: Nikkansports / Sanspo / Oricon