Yamada Yoji’s Tokyo Kazoku (Tokyo Family) will be homage to one of the most respected Japanese movies of all times, 1953 classic Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story) directed by Ozu Yasujiro and it has a very strong ensemble.
Yamada Yoji (Downtown Heroes, Twilight Samurai, Hidden Sword: Demon’s Talons) is possibly Japan’s supreme living movie director, and one of its most talented. This year is jubilee– the 50th anniversary of his directing career and therefore the first details of his upcoming movie were revealed.
Ichihara Etsuko, 75 (Black Rain) and Sugawara Bunta, 77, will play the aged parents who visit their children in Tokyo ( played by Ryu Chishu and Higashiyama Chieko in the Ozu original). Aoi Yu (About Her Brother) will play the girlfriend (played by Hara Setsuko in the original) of the younger son. The son was killed during WWII in Ozu’s original, but would be played in this adaptation by Tsumabuki Satonshi, frontruner of last week’s Japan Academy Prize for Best Actor in Villain.
While the basic plot is the same as in Ozu’s movie, Yamada will add such a new age theme as the increase of older people living and dying alone in Japan.
Other casts include Natsukawa Yui (“Still Walking”), Nishimura Masahiko (“Welcome Back Mr. McDonald’) and Muroi Shigeru (“Villon’s Wife”).
Ozu Yasujiro was Yamada’s mentor when he first came into Shochiku (Japan’s leading film and theater company) and Yamada had long talked about paying some kind of tribute to amazing “Tokyo Story”.
Yamada turns 80 this year, and this will be his 82nd feature since he debuted with “Nikai no Tanin” (A Stranger Upstairs) in 1961. He will furthermore direct a stage version of “Tokyo Story” at a Tokyo theater next season.
Filming of “Tokyo Kazoku’ (Tokyo Family) is scheduled to start in April 2011 and set for a 2012 release date.
Yamada Yoji
