| Shabu Gokudo (1996) |
| Cast: Koji Yakusho... Makabe Itsumi Ai Saotome ... Suzuko Masayuki Watanabe ...Shimomura Shiro Hirotaro Honda... Urashima Shun Sugata... Kano Ryo Hiroshi Fujita ... Kanzaki Tatsumi |
| Running time: 164 min. Release Date: May 28, 1996 Directed by Tatsuoki Hosono Screenplay: Sachio Yamanouchi |
| Koji's role of Itsumi Makabe in "Shabu Gokudo", directed by Tatsuoki Hosono was completely different from his former roles. Makabe, who has been brought up by a boss of a small gangster group, grows up to believe in the power of drugs, and devotes his life to selling drugs to rescue people from hardship. His characterization is rather commical and gives us the impression like he is a naughty boy. He howls around from the beginning till the end with the Osaka regional accent, which is different from Tokyo accent. It is amazing to notice that the shooting of this film started soon after "Shall We Dance?" was over. |
| Can you believe that this is the same actor who played the role of Sugiyama in " Shall We Dance? " in the same year? "Shabu Gokudo" is the original title of the film, but when it came to be a video, the director Tatsuoki Hosono was asked to change its title by the Video Ethics Regulatory Committee for the reason that the term "Shabu" is not suitable for the video which is seen at home. Besides that, some dialogues in the film were required to be deleted for the video version due to the same reason. After repeated appeals to the Committee by Hosono, the original title was permitted to be used in brackets when the film was released. Another interesting episode was that Yakusho was introduced to Shohei Imamura because Hosono was the disciple of Shohei Imamura. |
| Shabu Gokudo |
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