Asano Tadanobu & Tanaka Rena to star in new movie "Osanako warera ni umare"

Asano Tadanobu and Tanaka Rena will be starring in the new movie "Osanako warera ni umare" (A young child is born to us) which is based on the 1996 same-titled novel by Shigematsu Kiyoshi and directed by Mishima Yukiko. Back when the novel was published, Shigematsu and scriptwriter Arai Haruhiko had already agreed to make it into a movie but it took another 20 years before this plan finally materialised. With the increase in divorce rates and new families formed by divorcees, the theme of the movie is especially fitting in the modern era even the novel was published a long time ago. The movie will be shown in cinemas from 26 August 2017.

Asano plays the 40-year-old once-divorced lead character Tanaka Shin who remarries Nae (Tanaka), also a divorcee. Together with her two children from a previous marriage, Shin tries to forge a bond with them but is met with especially strong resistance from Nae's elder daughter Kaoru who keeps wanting to meet her birth father cum Nae's ex-husband Sawada (Kudo Kankuro) despite the fact that the latter was physically abusive towards Nae and didn't take care of his family. On the other hand, Shin has a daughter Saori from his previous marriage to Yuka (Terajima Shinobu) who later remarried an university professor and moved to the US. Despite being physically apart from Saori, Shin tries to show his love for Saori by meeting her regularly which makes Nae feel uncomfortable. When Nae finds out that she is pregnant with Shin's child, the couple have to grapple with the difficulties that come with forming a new family unit and their conflicting feelings towards each other's previous spouses and their children from the previous marriages.

Tanaka commented that her character is a very difficult one to play as she is caught between her daughter's reluctance to accept her remarriage and her insecurity over her new husband's love for his daughter from his previous marriage. However, she felt that it is meaningful to take on such a role and that she would enjoy the filming and put in her best effort for this movie. On the other hand, Asano said that this is a role which he felt that he could take on now that he's already in his 40s and he's thankful to be able to come across such a good script and play this character.

Meanwhile, Kudo described his character as a man who would justify his bad deeds in the best way possible so as to live without a guilt so he tried his best to show the detestable side of this man. What made it tougher for him was that he had to scold and beat Tanaka in the movie even though he is a big fan of hers so he tried to forget what he had done to her once the filming was over. As for Terajima, she revealed that Yuka didn't lead a good life and was having a lot of regrets after remarrying so she tried to imagine how she would feel in Yuka's shoes even though the movie did not mention much about Shin's current relationship with Yuka.

Co-stars include Ikeda Narushi, Kamata Raiju, Arai Miu and Mizusawa Shingo.

Sources: Eiga.com 1 / Eiga.com 2