First-day-screening event of new movie "Ai no Yamai"

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Ai no Yamai" was held at Cinema Shinjuku on 6 January which was attended by the director Yoshida Kota and cast members Seto Saori, Okayama Amane and Sasaki Kokone. The story is based on the true story of a murder-cum-assault case which took place at Wakayama in 2002 and led to the death of one person and another to be seriously injured. A woman who was living in Wakayama and worked in a company, had collaborated with an unemployed man she met on an online dating site to kill a woman living in Osaka for the sake of money. The corpse was then burnt and dumped in the mountains of Wakayama. It was later found out that the woman had dated the victim's younger brother prior to the crime. Both the woman and man were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005.

Seto plays the lead character Emiko who poses as the daughter of a yakuza chief and instigates a man who she comes to know from an online matchmaking site to commit robbery and murder. Okayama plays Shinnosuke who is totally devoted to Emiko after getting to know her online and gives up all his money for her. He is then ordered by Emiko to kill a woman which is part of her plan to frame him for the robbery-cum-murder case. Other co-stars include Gekidan EXILE's Yagi Masayasu, Yamada Maho, Sasaki Kokone, Kuroishi Takahiro and Fujita Tomoko.

Seto commented that this was a movie which the cast and staff had put in their all so it was especially happy and gratifying for them to see the film finally released. As the content is rather provocative, she admitted that she was worried if this would be well-received by everyone but was glad to be welcomed by such a warm response from the audience. As the story was based on a true case, the director said that the production process was filled with difficulties as they had to inject a sense of reality into the story while keeping it interesting. Although the story may seem like something far-fetched and unrealistic, this was something which could happen to anyone in reality.

Seto who described her character Emiko as someone who lives by her instincts, said that in order to look like Emiko, she dyed her hair red and drew her eyebrows in such a way so that she looked sharp and menacing. However, Emiko is also a lonely woman so Seto had to immerse herself into the role by cutting off contact with her family and friends during the filming. In addition, she had to do the last scene on the first day of the filming so she was grateful that everyone waited for her to prepare herself so that she could concentrate on the important scene.

Okayama commented that it was a tough filming process as he felt that he had to do acting without using words to convey the deepest emotions. With each scene completed, he was reminded of what he wanted to achieve through his acting. As for his first impression of Seto, he said that she is a very humble person and performed way better than expected for a newcomer.

Sources: Eiga.com / Oricon / Natalie