Yamazaki Kento & Miura Tomokazu to star in new movie "Hitsuji to Hagane no Mori"

Yamazaki Kento and Miura Tomokazu will be starring in the new movie "Hitsuji to Hagane no Mori" (The sheep and the steel forest)  which is based on the same-titled novel by Miyashita Natsu which won the 2016 Honya Taisho, 2016 Kino Best! No.1 and 2015 Brunch Book Award. Although the first press of the novel had only 6,500 copies, it has accumulated sales of more than 500,000 copies after winning the three awards. Filming began at Asahikawa City, Hokkaido, from 2 February and is expected to be wrapped up by mid March. The summer portion of the story will be filmed in June this year before the film is screened in cinemas next year.

Yamazaki plays the lead character Tomura Naoki, a 20-year-old guy who lives in Hokkaido and just graduated from a piano tuning school. When he was a high school student, he met a piano tuner Itadori Souichiro. Intrigued by the sound of the piano after it was tuned by Itadori and having the feeling that the sound has the smell of the forest, Tomura starts working at Itadori's musical instruments shop. Through the piano, he comes into contact with various people such as the pianist sisters Kazune and Yuni and grapples with his own worries, doubts and setbacks in life.

In preparation for the filming, Yamazaki started piano tuning training from late last year and went to the filming location in Hokkaido earlier than the other cast members. Through reading the original novel, Yamazaki said that he could identify with Tomura's worries and failures over whether talent, hard work is more important or working for the sake of others would help him succeed. As such, regardless of which occupation the viewers have, they will be able to identify with the theme of the story. As for Miura, he is excited about how to present the novel's concept associating the forest with the piano's sound. He also pledged to do his best with his co-stars and keep the feel of the original novel intact in the movie.

Source: Sanspo