First-day-screening event of new movie "Aku to kamen no ruuru"

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Aku to kamen no ruuru" was held at Shinjuku Wald 9 on 13 January which was attended by the director Nakamura Teppei and cast members Tamaki Hiroshi, Araki Yuuko, Yoshizawa Ryo and Nakamura Tatsuya. The story is based on the same-titled novel by Akutagawa Award-winning writer Nakamura Fuminori and features Tamaki as the lead character Kuki Fumihiro who was born into a rich family. The movie 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 (Araki Yuuko) 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.

At the end of the screening, Tamaki greeted the audience by saying that after watching the film, it would be quite clear to the audience that this is actually a love story. With regard to the climax scene where Fumihiro and Kaori are talking in the car, Tamaki revealed that the script had indicated this to be done at the airport's lobby but he had asked for the scene to match what was depicted in the original novel.

Yoshizawa who plays a terrorist named Ito, said that he had to distant himself from the rest of the cast during the filming so as to get into the mood but he was especially impressed by Tamaki who had no airs and interacted with him in a natural manner. As for Nakamura who played Fumihiro's elder brother Mikihiko and had a signature line in the movie "omae wo ja ni suru tame ni youi sareta onna" (this woman was arranged for you to make you evil), he repeated the same line which made the audience very excited. Nakamura said that even though he is no stranger to baddie roles, this was the first time he had so many lines because he usually "died" on screen in 30 secs after appearing and his characters had a 80 percent "fatality" rate. As such, when he was instructed by the director to move in a certain way, he was worried about forgetting his lines by the time he was done with "beating" people and managed to stop himself in time before he got carried away with the "action".

As Tamaki celebrates his 38th birthday on the following day after the event, a surprise celebration was held where a meat "cake" made from 4kg of Angus T-bone beef steaks and 1.5kg of Shizuoka roast beef as the topping was presented to him since he is a meat lover.  Tamaki couldn't stop smiling as he remarked that this was the first time he saw such a cake and expressed his liking for this. When asked about his thoughts upon seeing the meat cake, Yoshizawa remarked that it looked juicy and delicious which led Tamaki to tease him for being bad at doing a gourmet report. Araki commented that this was the first time she smelled something like this in a cinema other than popcorn and seemed very intrigued by the meat cake. After the chef was invited on stage to cut the meat cake, Tamaki was unable to speak for a while as he had his mouth full with the meat and worried about how he was going to bring the cake home.

Sources: Natalie / Eiga.com