Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Suda Masaki, Kiritani Kenta & Kimura Fumino to star in new movie "Hibana"

Suda Masaki and Kiritani Kenta will be joint leads in the upcoming movie "Hibana" which is based on the 153th Akutagawa Award-winning same-titled novel by comedian duo Peace's Matayoshi Naoki and directed by Itao Itsuji. The actors have experience working together as they both appear in the au Santaro CM series as Oni-chan and Ura-chan. Coincidentally, the two of them are from Osaka so it is expected that they will have no problems with the Kansai-ben lines and comedy skits in the movie.

The novel version of "Hibana" has sold 2.83 million copies to date and describes how Tokunaga, a struggling comedian meets his senior Kamiya who has a strong belief in what he does and tries to overcome the gap between his ideals, talent and reality. The drama version directed by Hiroki Ryuichi was shown via Netflix last June and featured Hayashi Kento as Tokunaga and Namioka Kazuki as Kamiya. As for the movie version, Suda and Kiritani will be playing Tokunaga and Kamiya respectively and Kimura Fumio will play Kamiya's girlfriend Maki. Nichoukenjuu's Kawatani Shuji will be playing Yamashita who is Tokunaga's partner in the comedic duo Sparks while Miura Masaki will be playing Obayashi who is Kamiya's partner in the comedic duo Ahondara.

Suda commented that he can appreciate the difficulties of making people laugh so he feels scared about playing a comedian. However, when he met the director, he began to feel that it was OK to take on this role and it would be very interesting to work with this staff and cast lineup. On the other hand, Kiritani said that he loves comedy since he was a kid as he likes the energy that emerges when people are tickled by the comedians' performances. However, the constant struggle with the fear of being not well-received by the audience is a real concern for these comedians so he feels that this is probably the most frightening for him when he is acting in this movie.

The movie will be shown at cinemas from November this year.

Sources: Eiga.com / Oricon

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