In December it got announced that Arashi’s Ninomiya Kazunari (26) and Shibasaki Kou (28) would star together in Kaneko Fuminori’s "Ooku," a live-action film adaptation of the manga by Yoshinaga Fumi. Both Ninomiya and Shibasaki never starred in a jidaigeki film before.
Today the supporting cast for the promising movie got announced. It will include other stars like Horikita Maki (21), Tamaki Hiroshi (30), Abe Sadawo (39) and Kanjani8′s Okura Tadayoshi (24).
The movie is set during the Edo period. A mysterious disease strikes Japan’s male population, reducing their numbers to a fraction of the female population. As a result, the traditional gender roles are overturned, with women becoming the dominant members of society and men becoming valued for their ability to produce offspring.
In the story, the shoguns of the time are actually women, and the "ooku" (the "inner chambers" of the shogun’s castle) consists of thousands of men rather than women. Shibasaki plays the role of the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune, while Ninomiya plays a young man named Mizuno who enters the ooku and aims to get promoted to the "serve" the shogun.
Horikita will play a neighborhood girl and childhood friend of Mizuno with feelings for him. According to the press release we can look forward to a love story where neither one can be honest with each other. It will be a roller coaster ride of love and hate inside the ooku and feature fresh elements that make it a different and more unique love story compared to others.
Tamaki, Abe and Okura will play other key roles in the world of ooku’s handsome men. Of course Tamaki’s role will be no other than the most handsome of all handsome men and lead the elite group of the ooku. Abe’s role has already given up of getting promoted to serve the shogun and will be a character full of sorrow. For Okura it will be the first role in a movie and it will be that of the biggest rival of Mizuno. He is a master of the sword and one highlight of the movie is going to be a fierce battle between Okura and Ninomiya.
Other than the amazing cast, we can look forward to probably(!) more than just 1 movie and a budget of more than 1 billion yen for the first installment. "Ooku" will open in Japan on October 1, 2010.
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Written by: KawaiiJoyuu
Sources: Sanspo (and old news from Tokyograph for reference)
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MAKI AGAIN? I love it, as their action is likely that their interpretation and then went up a little under a radical interpretation of character but is getting better in my opinion, his performance is more respectable than other actresses of her generation, and always exceeds WISH SEE THE MOVIE NOW