Preview screening event & press conference of new movie "Aku to kamen no ruuru"

The preview screening event and press conference of new movie "Aku to kamen no ruuru" was held at Umeda Burg 7 in Osaka on 8 December  which was attended by the lead actor Tamaki Hiroshi. The movie will be released in cinemas from 13 January and is based on the same-titled novel by Akutagawa Award-winning writer Nakamura Fuminori.

Tamaki plays the lead character Kuki Fumihiro who was born into a rich family. The story begins at the time when Fumihiro was only 10 years old and came to know about the secret behind his birth and upbringing. His birth father who was the head of the household told him how he had raised his son with the aim of turning the latter into a personification of evil and "promised" to show him hell on his 14th birthday. However, one year before that, he was made to see hell first hand when Kaori, his father's adopted daughter and whom he liked, was raped in front of him. In order to protect his beloved, Fumihiro killed his father which meant that he was one step closer to the evil which his father wanted him to become. He then disappeared from Kaori's side and took on a new identity as Shintani Koichi who protects Kaori from the shadows over more than ten years. While doing so, he comes into contact again with the evil in the Kuki family which is now headed by Fumihiro's elder brother Mikihiko, a greater personification of evil. Araki Yuuko will be playing the role of Kaori.


Tamaki described his role as one which he had never played before and it would be difficult to label Fumihiro as evil so easily. He commented that since he has never gone under the knife like what Fumihiro did, he had to imagine how it was to get a different face which would make it difficult for Fumihiro to show his true self with his facial expressions. In order to act in the scene which revealed Fumihiro's new face after the plastic surgery, Tamaki got a friend who is an acupuncturist to stick 50 needles into his face first so that he could maintain this sensation after the new face of Koichi was revealed when the bandages were removed.

As there are many close-up scenes in this movies, Tamaki said that this was done to show that despite the change in appearance, Fumihiro's eyes, heart and habits were still the same as before. As such, these scenes were necessary to show the subtle similarities between Fumihiro and Koichi. In addition, Tamaki had to go through an intensive diet and exercise routine involving running, swimming and boxing so as to show off his figure in this movie after he put on 10kg for his role in the 2015 NHK morning drama "Asa ga kita".

Sources: Yomiuri Hochi / Nikkansports