Premiere event of new movie "Aibou Gekijouban IV Shuto Crisis Hitojichi wa 50-mannin! Tokumei Kakari Saigo no Ketsudan"

The premiere event of new movie "Aibou Gekijouban IV Shuto Crisis Hitojichi wa 50-mannin! Tokumei Kakari Saigo no Ketsudan" was held at Roppongi Hills on 24 January which was attended by cast members Mizutani Yutaka, Sorimachi Takashi, Nakama Yukie, Oikawa Mitsuhiro, Yamaguchi Mayu, Kitamura Kazuki Kaga Takeshi, Suzuki Anju, Kawahara Kazuhisa, Yamanaka Takashi, Yamanishi Atsushi, Jinbo Satoshi, Ono Ryo, Katagiri Ryuji and Ishizaka Koji. The movie will be shown in cinemas from 11 February. About 2,000 people gathered at the 9 screening halls to watch the movie ahead of the public release.

Mizutani commented that ever since the Aibou series began in 2000, they had the dream of making a movie version which to date, has been realised four times. In particular, this latest film assembles many regular cast members including his 2nd generation buddy Oikawa and 4th generation buddy Sorimachi along with the guest stars so he was confident that this meant the birth of a new chapter in the "Aibou" series. Mizutani was also glad and relief that his latest buddy Sorimachi had a Aibou movie to his name since his three former buddies all appeared in the movies. Upon hearing this, Sorimachi joked that he would be quite resentful if he was the only one without a Aibou movie to his name especially if a 5th generation buddy comes into the series to replace him.

One of the major scenes in the movie was shot in Kokura Kita Ward of Kitakyushu City in Fukuoka Prefecture where they had to seal off a main street and involved 3,000 extras. However, filming had to be suspended twice due to the rain so it was a tough thing to re-assemble the extras and make preparations for the filming. In response to this, Mizutani thanked the locals for their help especially since the story was set in Tokyo. He also said that regardless of how the movie turns out to be, those who liked it will bask in the happiness of having seen a good film for at least one week while those who didn't would have reason to complain about it for the same period of time. As such, he called upon to find out for themselves which category would the film fall under.

Oikawa who makes his re-appearance in the movie as the second generation, expressed joy at being able to appear in the movie and interacting with Sorimachi's character. As for Kitamura who is appearing in the Aibou series for the first time, he revealed that he had been seeing Mizutani's works since he was a kid so it was a dream come true to be able to act with him although he would have preferred playing his buddy. Upon hearing this, Ishizaka who plays the father of the 3rd generation buddy Kai Tooru (Narimiya Hiroki), joked that Kitamura could be "upgraded" from a guest star to the 5th generation buddy in future.

Sources: Eiga.com 1 /  Eiga.com 2 / Oricon