| Koji Yakusho News 4 |
| January 28, 2003 1) As Koji Yakusho mentioned on his website on January 14 , he will play a stage play this year. What we have learned so far about this play is that the title is "Futatabi no Koi" (Falling in Love Again) and that it will be at Parco Theater in Tokyo in July. 2) Koji Yakusho was selected as one of the best five actors for the 2002 Japan Academy Awards for his performance as Sassa Atsuyuki in Masato Harada's "Totsunyuseyo' Asama Sanso Jiken" (The Choice of Hercules). The Award ceremony will be held at Shin Takanawa Prince Hotel on March 7. Masato Harada was also selected as one of the five best directors, and his film, "The Choice of Hercules" was selected as one of the best five films. |
| January 28, 2003 - September 15, 2003 |
| March 18, 2003 The 26th Japan Academy Ceremony was held on March 7 in Tokyo. On TV, I watched Koji Yakusho standing on the stage with two other actors, Akira Terao, Etsushi Toyokawa. Among the five actors selected as 'best actors', Toshiyuki Nishida and Hiroyuki Sanada were not able to attend the ceremony: T. Nishida became ill and H. Sanada who was in New Zealand for filming "The Last Smurai", joined the ceremony via satellite relay from New Zealand. It was Sanada who gained the award as top of the five 'best actors', but Koji Yakusho attracted a different kind of attention, as it was his 7th successive 'best actor' award since the award for his role in "Shall We Dance?"(1996) ________________________________________ Through the official website, it was announced that Yakusho was invited to the Valenciennes Film Festival in France, to be held from 19th to 23rd March, as the Festival decided that he should be given the 'distinguished service award' for his contribution to films during the closing ceremony. Six of his starring films reportedly were due to be shown during the Festival. The office said that Yakusho would leave for Valenciennes around the 21st March. I checked the official website of the Valenciennes Film Festival and found that those six films were, "The Eel", "Warm Water under the Red Bridge", "Eureka", "Cure", "Charisma" and Seance". |
| August 13, 2003 The July & August run of Koji Yakusho's stage play, "Futatabi no Koi" (Falling in Love Again) ended in Osaka on August 10 (Sun) to great applause. Reportedly, the last performance in Nagoya on August 3 (Sun) gained a standing ovation! Koji Yakusho will take a rest for a while, but since "Doppelganger" by Kiyoshi Kurosawa is due to be shown toward the end of September, he will soon resume working. |
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| September 2, 2003 According to the official website of "Doppelganger", this film is due to be shown at Pusan International Film Festival on its opening day, October 2nd. Here is Pymmik's translation of his comment: " For a long time I have been longing to visit Pusan International Festival. It was a great pity that I was not able to attend the Festival when "Warm Water under a Red Bridge" was shown there a few years ago. I now look forward to seeing how the audience in Korea will find this film on the opening day of this year's Festival." |
| September 15, 2003 Director Masato Harada announces on his website that his 1997 film, "Bounce koGals" is due to be shown at Cinema Village in New York City from October 3. Koji Yakusho co-stars in it as "as intelligent yakuza, Oshima"! |
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