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

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Haruchika" was held at TOHO Cinemas Shinjuku on 4 March which was attended by the director Ichii Masahide and cast members Sato Shouri, Hashimoto Kanna, Shimizu Hiroya, Tsunematsu Yuri, Maeda Kouki and Koide Keisuke. The film which is based on the same-titled novel series by Hatsuno Sei that had sold more than 550,000 copies to date, features how childhood friends Haruta (Sato) and Chika (Hashimoto) who last met in primary 3 before he moved to another place, reunites in senior high school. Despite aspiring to join a brass band all this while, Chika is aghast to find that their school's brass band is about to be disbanded due to an incident. As such, to save the brass band and get the members together again, she gets Haruta to help in her efforts and uncovers a sad mystery behind the incident. Haruta will be playing the horn in the band while Chika plays the flute.

As this is the first time that Sato had taken on the leading role in a movie, he was deeply moved by the experience of attending this event for the first time in his life. He also revealed that he plans to go and watch his movie in a cinema which led his joint lead Hashimoto to remark that he will cause a stir among the audience who would be shocked to see him sitting beside them.

When asked about the highlights of the movie, Sato commented that there was a scene where he was to be kicked by Hashimoto who revealed that the director told her in a soft voice to kick with more power. During the screening, Hashimoto realised how much force she had put into it and was shocked by what she did. As for Maeda, he joked that he has a kissing scene in the movie which would most likely be his first and last in his career. Koide commented that there is a tinge of boys' life in the story through the "love triangle" between his teacher character, Haru and Chika. This led Hashimoto to reveal that at the end of the filming, Koide and Sato had shared a kiss which made the two actors get flustered and claimed that they were doing it for fun. However, their co-stars kept teasing them and refused to buy their explanation.

At the end of the event, the director presented graduation certificates to Sato and Hashimoto for their hard work during the filming. Actually, Hashimoto had recently graduated from senior high school but couldn't attend her graduation ceremony due to work. As such, to be able to receive a graduation certificate during the event made her very happy. On the other hand, Sato said that he saw the graduation not as the end but a start for them and the movie to become a hit.

Sources: Oricon 1 / Oricon 2