First-day-screening event of new movie "Hamon Futari no Yakubyougami"

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Hamon Futari no Yakubyougami" was held at Marunouchi Picadilly on 28 January which was attended by the director Kobayashi Shotaro and cast members Sasaki Kuranosuke, Yokoyama Yu, Kitagawa Keiko, Kinoshita Houka, Johnny's WEST Hamada Takahiro, Yamoto Yuma, Hashimoto Manami and Hashizume Isao. The movie which is based on the same-titled novel by Naoki Award winner Kurokawa Hiroyuki, features Sasaki as a gang member Kuwahara who teams up with a construction consultant Ninomiya (Yokoyama) to chase after a fraudster (Hashizume) to the Kansai region and Macau so as to get back their money.

During the event, the cast were asked a number of questions by the host of which one was whether they wanted to do another person's role in this movie where it turned out that only Yamoto chose yes. When asked about this question, Kitagawa who plays Ninomiya's cousin, commented that there were very few female roles in this movie so even if she wanted to change, there was only Hashimoto's role as the fraudster's mistress to choose from. However, she didn't think that she had that feminine charm to pull off that role so she felt that the casting choice was just right. In response, Hashimoto commented that she was happy to be praised for being charming and that she would not have been able to play Kitagawa's role in response.

As most of the cast members come from the Kansai region, they were asked a "taboo" question of when they felt that they had "sold their souls" to Tokyo. Sasaki who comes from Kyoto and answered yes, said that when he came to Tokyo for the university exam, he unconsciously spoke in standard Japanese rather than Kansai-ben when he reached Tokyo Station and wanted to ask for directions to go to Shinjuku. When he realised it, he felt so bad about it that he made sure he used Kansai-ben for the rest of his trip. Meanwhile, Yokoyama and Kinoshita also answered yes to this question. Kinoshita revealed that he felt this way at an early stage when he left Osaka to come to Tokyo at the age of 25. Apparently, he was so used to life in Tokyo especially how people would queue up properly and there would be less honking and screeching from cars on the road that he sometimes found it tough to adjust when he returned to Osaka. However, Yokoyama who also comes from Osaka, said that despite the differences, he still loved Osaka for its warm atmosphere as he related how he was given sweets by a middle-aged lady while he was filming there.

Sources: Oricon / Eiga.com