First-day-screening event of new movie "Kaizoku to yobareta otoko"

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Kaizoku to yobareta otoko" was held at TOHO Cinemas Nichigeki 1 on 10 December which was attended by the director Yamazaki Takashi and cast members Okada Junichi, Yoshioka Hidetaka, Sometani Shota, Suzuki Ryohei, Nomaguchi Toru, Pierre Taki, Ayase Haruka and Kobayashi Kaoru. The movie which is based on the bestselling novel by Hyakuta Naoki, is set in the turbulent times from the Meiji, Taisho to the Showa eras. Okada plays the lead character Kunioka Tetsuzo who is a shrewd entrepreneur and tries to develop his oil business despite external and internal pressures. He is nicknamed "kaizoku" by the people around him and the movie will depict his life from his 20s to his 90s.

In relation to the title, the cast were asked to describe Okada with the title "X to yobareta Otoko" where Suzuki called Okada the paparazzi man who went around taking pictures of everyone secretly when they were off guard. At the end of each day, Okada sent an email to him with the title "Today's Suzuki-kun" and attached his photo of the day. Soon after, he would send another photo titled "Today's Someyan (Sometani)". Upon hearing this, Okada burst out laughing and poked fun at Sometani for being afraid of loneliness. Even when Sometani had finished the filming for his part, he stayed around to watch Okada and yet didn't approach the latter to talk to him. In response, Sometani revealed that as he respects Okada a lot, he would always refer to him as Okada-sama when he talks to other people.

As for Ayase who is the only female in the cast, she jokingly referred to Okada as someone who is not just passionate about his work but a mucha-purist (someone who goes to excessive extremes). She recounted that there was once when they were asked a question on the selling point of the movie and Okada had deflected the question to her by saying that she had a point to make. Okada then responded smilingly that he did that on purpose because he wanted to hear Ayase's answer instead of doing it himself.

Sources: Eiga.com / Oricon