First-day-screening event of new movie "Koto"

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Koto" was held at Shinjuku Picadilly on 3 December which was attended by the director Yuki Saito and cast members Matsuyuki Yasuko, Hashimoto Ai, Narumi Riko, Ihara Tsuyoshi and Hayama Shono as well as Niiyama Shiori who sings the theme song. The film was released earlier in Kyoto first on 26 November as it was where the movie was largely filmed.

The movie which is based on the novel by the late Kawabata Yasunari, had been made into movies in 1963 and 1980. However, the novel did not touch on what happened after the twin sisters Chieko and Naeko grew up. Matsuyuki plays the roles of both Chieko and Naeko while Hashimoto plays Mai, the daughter of Chieko and Narumi plays Yui, the daughter of Naeko.

Matsuyuki commented that she was glad to be greeted with smiles from everyone after the movie was screened so she feels glad that the hard work put in by everyone has been acknowledged by the audience. When asked to comment on their characters, Hashimoto said that Mai is someone who doesn't have a mind of her own and is unsure of what she wants but after the trip to Paris, Mai begins to realise the value of her life experience so Hashimoto found this part of Mai's realisation especially appealing about her character. As for Narumi, she recounted that Yui's experience of being overly confident in herself is something which everyone has probably gone through before and can identify with so it made her feel that it was worthwhile playing this character. Upon hearing the comments of her two "daughters", Matsuyuki remarked that she used to be very curious and daring to try everything without considering whether she can handle it so by seeing the younger actresses now, she felt as if she was seeing herself in the past.

Ihara who plays Chieko's husband and Mai's father, recounted fondly that he had a good time filming this movie because he had a beautiful wife (Matsuyuki) and cute daughter (Hashimoto). Besides the delicious food in Kyoto, he also had fun going around at night whenever he was free.

Source: Eiga.com