Kaho, Sometani Shota & Higashide Masahiro to star in spin-off drama from new movie "Sanposuru Shinryakusha"

Kaho, Sometani Shota and Higashide Masahiro will be starring in the spin-off drama from new movie "Sanposuru Shinryakusha" starring Nagasawa Masami and Matsuda Ryuhei which is due to be shown in cinemas from 9 September. The spin-off drama titled "Yochou Sanposuru Shinryakusa" (Omen The strolling invader) consists of 4 episodes and will be shown on WOWOW from 18 September at 12 midnight on Mondays after it gets released on WOWOW members on demand first from 7 September at midnight. It will be directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi who also directed the movie version.

The story describes how Yamagiwa Etsuko (Kaho) brings her colleague Asai Miyuki (Kishii Yukino) to the hospital where her husband Tatsuo (Sometani) works at after Miyuki tells her that there is a ghost in her house. However, when Etsuko pays a visit to Miyuki's place, she finds his father to be the only person with her. Miyuki is then diagnosed with a psychological deficiency in her mental concept of a family. Just then, Etsuko also meets a new surgeon Makabe Shiro (Higashide) at the hospital and finds him strange for some reason. When explainable things start happening around Etsuko and Tatsuo is stressed psychologically for some reason, she starts to suspect Makabe for having a part to play in this especially after he tells her that he is here to invade Earth. Co-stars also include Nakamura Eriko, Yasui Junpei, Ishibashi Kei, Yoshioka Mutsuo, Otsuka Hirota, Chiba Tetsuya, Suwa Taro, Watanabe Makiko, Nakamura Makoto and Oosugi Ren.

Kaho commented that she was troubled over how to play Etsuko who has a strong faith but with the help of everyone around her, she was able to enjoy the filming to the fullest. Sometani revealed that he had not seen the final product yet but hopes that this drama will be an evergreen work which can be watched for a long time and repeatedly. As for Higashide, he expressed his joy at being able to work under director Kurosawa in this drama.

The movie version features Matsuda as Kase Shinji who has the habit of going on daily walks every evening but disappears without a trace for a few days. When he returns home, it is as if he has become an entirely different person which makes his wife Narumi (Nagasawa) shocked at his changes especially when he becomes very gentle and nice to her. Suddenly, Shinji tells Narumi that there will be an attack on Earth which is then followed by a series of strange happenings such as the mass killing of a family in the town they live in and the happening of weird events that disrupts the peaceful life they once had. Hasegawa Hiroki plays the role of a journalist Sakurai who follows the "invader" around as part of his job. Higashide also appears in the movie version.

Sources: Eiga.com / Oricon