musings

Musings from Pymmik

Here, from time to time, I am going to write about my musings relating to Koji Yakusho and his work.

Created on Feb.20, 2008

February 20   About "Hachiko: A Dog's Story"

     A short while ago, on discovering from the IMDb announcement that, instead of Koji Yakusho, the Japanese actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa ( who played the role of the Baron in "Memoirs of a Geisha/ Sayuri") would be taking the role of Ken in "Hachiko: A Dog's Story"( i.e. the forthcoming Hollywood remake of the movie, "Hachiko Monogatari", starring Richard Gere), I deleted the page for "Hachiko: A Dog's story" from my Koji website.

      I continue to wonder, however, why such noted movie info sites as Hollywood.com.,Yahoo Movies or the New York Times still add "Hachiko: A Dog's Story" onto Koji's filmography.

     Here is my guess as to a possible explanation:

On his official website blog on October 27, 2007, Koji started his comment like this:

      “At this time of the year I was actually supposed to be working in a certain foreign country; but the schedule was delayed again and again, and now I feel that this circumstance couldn't have been helped.”

     He added that, because of the scheduling delay, he felt happy that he could attend the stage greeting session for "Zo-no Senaka" on October 27th, as well as another stage greeting session for "SILK" held on october 28, at the time of the closing of the Tokyo International Film Festival. Koji also said that he now felt a sense of relief, being freed from the task of preparing for an English- speaking role.

     Reading these reported comments, many Koji fans must have got puzzled, wondering what on earth he might have been thinking about. Which movie did he have in mind?   Did he perhaps mean "The Beast of Bataan"?

    Next, I was stunned to see on Hollywood.com that in the role of Ken, our Koji would appear in the Hollywood production titled, "Hachiko: A Dog's Story", for which filming would start in Connecticut in September 2007. However, soon after that, I came across another info that, due to the change of film director, shooting of "Hachiko" would recommence in Rhode Island, late in January 2008.

     Now, last November, various sites indicated that Koji might appear as General Masaharu Homma in "Beast of Bataan", together with Hayden Christensen; and that the filming was due to start late in February 2008 in Queensland, Australia. Judging from these different pieces of info, the shooting schedules for these two movies may possibly have clashed.

     Although I felt that I had to delete the page for "Hachiko: A Dog's Story" simply because Koji would not appear in this movie, I myself am actually interested in this movie for various reasons, the first being that I knew that famed Tatsuya Nakadai, Koji's acting teacher, had starred in the original Japanese movie in 1987. As a matter of fact, long ago I watched this movie on video and was very impressed. I am therefore curious about this Hollywood remake version; and I am especially interested to see how the Japanese setting will be transmuted into an American version of the story.

    I'm also looking forward to seeing Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as 'Ken', in the American version of "Hachiko", since I was present in the audience to hear his impressive speech, both in his native tongue of Japanese and in English, at the time of the 2005 Japan premiere of "Memoirs of a Geisha/Sayuri" (Mr. Tagawa is on the far right at the back of the group photo), which was held at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. In the course of his speech Tagawa mentioned that, as a Japanese actor who had long been involved in Hollywood movies, he was so pleased to be able for once to greet a Japanese audience in Japan.