World premiere event of new movie "DESTINY Kamakura Monogatari"

The world premiere event of new movie "DESTINY Kamakura Monogatari" was held at Tokyo International Forum on 7 November which was attended by the director Yamazaki Takashi and cast members Sakai Masato, Takahata Mitsuki, Tsutsumi Shinichi, Ando Sakura, Tanaka Min, Nakamura Tamao, Kaname Jun, Kanbe Hiroshi, Tsuruta Mayu, Yoshiyuki Kazuko and Miura Tomokazu. The movie was shot between late January and late April this year and completed its VFX works on 31 October. It will be shown in cinemas from 9 December.

The film which is based on the manga "Kamakura Monogatari" by Saigan Ryohei, features Sakai in the role of Isshiki Masakazu who is a 35-year-old mystery novel writer living in Kamakura and likes to wear traditional Japanese clothing. He also has varied interests such as collecting railway models, plastic models and antiques, criminology research and investigation of supernatural phenomenon. Isshiki lives with his newly-married wife Akiko (Takahata) who is only 23-years-old. One day, Isshiki is approached to investigate a murder case involving a rich man which is suspected to be due to supernatural forces. At the same time, Akiko who is a newcomer to Kamakura, realises that the place is full of supernatural beings even though this is seen as perfectly normal to the locals.

Reflecting on the CG used in the movie, Yamazaki revealed that it was such a tough project this time so when he looked at the completed movie, he couldn't help but marvel at how miraculous it was for them to be able to complete this. Takahata echoed his view to say that they didn't realise how the movie would turn out since they were doing location shooting during the first part of the filming but were always in front of a green CG screen for the scond half. As such, it was easy for them to be confused and unsure of what to do as they had to rely on their imagination when doing the CG scenes. Tanaka who plays the poverty god in this movie, then expressed his thanks to the director for offering the role to him as he truly enjoyed acting as this character in a comical way.

In line with the movie's title "DESTINY", everyone was asked about whether they had any episodes which they thought was destined for them. Sakai then revealed that he had visited Namari Onsen by chance where he memorised his lines there while soaking in the onsen. He later found out that the director had written the script with the same onsen in mind thus making Sakai surprised at the unexpected coincidence. As for Takahata, she said that coming back to Tokyo International Forum seemed like fated for her as she had spent 6 years during her teens performing the musical of "Peter Pan" here. As for playing a married couple with Sakai, Takahata said that the filming of Sakai's Taiga drama "Sanadamaru" was about the same time as her morning drama "Toto Nee-chan" so they had met several times before outside the toilets in NHK. As such, they were not entirely strangers when they worked on this movie and had a strange bond of trust perhaps due to these chance meetings back then.

Sources: Eiga.com / Sanspo