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

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Vigilante" was held at Theatre Shinjuku on 9 December which was attended by the director Irie Yu and cast members Oomori Nao, Suzuki Kousuke, Kiritani Kenta and Shinoda Mariko. The movie is set in Fukaya City, Saitama Prefecture which is Irie's hometown and features an original script written by him. Oomori, Suzuki and Kiritani play brothers where the eldest Ichiro (Oomori) disappeared for 30 years since senior high while Jiro (Suzuki) is a city councillor who owns a printing company and is the chief of the local vigilance committee and Saburo (Kiritani) manages a prostitution business. Due to the death of their father (Sugata Shun) who they detested, the trio reunite thus setting off a chain of events which will turn their lives upside down. Shinoda plays Jiro's wife Shindo Miki who appears to be a virtuous wife on the surface but has a sly character and uses her good looks to twist men around her little finger. She treats Jiro like her child and manipulates him to get power and the inheritance left behind by her father-in-law.


Kiritani described this movie as a cool story with a lot of despair and regarded this as his signature work. He also expressed his gratitude to be able to rely on Oomori and Suzuki during the filming and thanked the director for making this movie. Suzuki commented that he liked Kiritani's comment while Oomori expressed his wish for the movie to be screened at a foreign film festival and win an award there which was met with loud applause and cheers from the audience. The director said that he also felt that this movie was his signature work and that he used himself as a model to create the three brothers' characters. When the project hit a rough patch, he cried for the first time in front of others at the staff room although he had not done that since he was a child. As such, when the movie finally began filming at the beginning of 2017, he was very emotional about this.

When asked about any memorable episodes during the filming, Oomori said that they had to enter a river during the middle of winter so it was so cold that he thought that his heart was about to stop and tried to recall how much he was paid for the movie and wondered if it justified his "sacrifice". Although they went through extensive rehearsals and came to the conclusion that they only needed to be in the river for 10 minutes, it was so cold that they couldn't even bear with it for 3 minutes. There were staff members who had been in the industry for 20 years and made comments that the filming this time was the toughest they experienced to date. 

Shinoda who had an intimate scene with Suzuki in a car, commented that she had to start the year with that scene on the first day of her filming i.e. 4 January and was surprised when he greeted her happy new year and proceeded to ask the staff if they needed to take a shot of his buttocks. As there was no such shot in the movie, Shinoda joked that it was a pity while Kiritani teased Suzuki by saying that he should reveal his backside on stage now.
Sources: Yomiuri Hochi / Sanspo / Eiga.com / Natalie