Tokyo Reborn: Dark Superstar

Chapter 233 Dark Horse
This is the first Japanese drama "Midnight Diner" filmed by Al Jazeera after entering the Asian market.

According to Bunta Takakura's plan, Al Jazeera, a subsidiary of One Piece Entertainment, will benchmark Netflix in the future and build a streaming media platform "Al Jazeera TV". It will cooperate with first-line stars and internationally renowned directors from all over the world, invest heavily, and shoot film and television dramas for markets in various countries.

In "Midnight Diner", Bunta Takakura really wanted to invite Kurai Un to play the female lead in a single episode.

Ever since Al Jazeera bought the copyright of the "Midnight Diner" manga and prepared to turn it into a Japanese drama series, Bunta Takakura has been packing in those future stars to act in it.

Anyway, according to the setting of the comics, a new character will appear in every episode of Midnight Diner, which is convenient for changing actresses.

Bunta Takakura plans to recruit artists including Hirosue Ryoko, Hamasaki Ayumi, Utada Hikaru, Kuraki Mai, Aragaki Yui from One Piece Entertainment, as well as Zhou Xun, Zhang Ziyi, Fan Bingbing, Zhang Jingchu, Jiang Qingqing from the inland branch.

The late-night diner is permanent, but the heroines in each episode come and go.

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After arranging the work of the foundation, Bunta Takakura devoted all his energy to the promotion and marketing of the film.

"Hanabi", which won the Golden Lion Award at the 55th Venice International Film Festival, is one of the rare high-quality Japanese police and gangster movies that impressed many viewers.

Kitano Takeshi is a Japanese manzai actor who was entrusted with the future of Japanese films by Akira Kurosawa. He has the face of a gangster and is a talented director who employs Joe Hisaishi and Yohji Yamamoto.

His directorial works are divided into two parts by 1995.

In 1995, he was involved in a car accident that was "extremely stupid".

When the doctor removed the steel bar that was piercing his left face from the right side of his face without anesthesia, he "fully understood Oden's feelings"...

Before that period, he had indulged in the sweet idea of ​​"suicide" several times and seemed to think he had overcome the fear of death.

In Kitano Takeshi's early works, "death", especially his own "death", was photographed repeatedly, but it did not point to sadness. This "repetition" was connected with the anxiety about "life" and tended towards the joy of "death".

These blue-themed images are calm yet violent.

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Hanabi (はなび)) is Japanese hanabi.

Hana means flower in Japanese, bi means fire in Japanese, and hanabi means fireworks.

Flowers are life, fire is death.

But whether it is flowers, fire, or "fireworks", whether life or death, they are all short-lived.

The images that echo this in the film are: snow melts easily, cherry blossoms fall easily, fireflies disappear easily, kites break easily, and the lives of friends...

Against the backdrop of the collapse of the Japanese economic bubble, the style of Takeshi Kitano's "Fireworks" fits the tone of Japanese society very well. …………

In just three days, "Hanabi" earned 1.1 million yen at the box office in the Japanese market, breaking the weekly championship record held by "Titanic" since last year.

Yes, the movie "Titanic" starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet, which was released last year, still firmly holds the title of weekly box office champion in Japan until the appearance of "Hanabi".

The cumulative box office of "Titanic" reached 272 billion yen, becoming the champion of Japan's overseas film box office.

However, the box office champion throne of "Firefly" only lasted for two weeks, as the Disney animation "Mulan" and the first film version of the popular American TV series "The X-Files: Conquering the Future" were released in Japan on the same day.

"Mulan" set a record for Disney's highest opening in the Japanese market since "Toy Story" in 2.3 with a first-week box office of 95 million yen.

Disney was really happy.

Although Western audiences may be unfamiliar with this ancient Eastern story, the Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian markets are very receptive to this kind of storyline, and the Japanese market has a natural high acceptance of animated films.

As for "The X-Files: Conquer the Future", it received mediocre response in Japan, only earning 2400 million yen at the box office, easily crushed by a number of blockbusters.

In this case, "Fireworks" could only rank second at the box office, surpassing "Titanic".

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However, the film market has always been one where things change very quickly, and just when everyone has already accepted this box office pattern.

A dark horse movie suddenly came out.

This is "The Ring", a low-budget production of $120 million, directed by Hideo Nakata, written by Koji Suzuki and Hiroshi Takahashi, starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani and others.

This somewhat crude, low-budget film grossed nearly 2000 million U.S. dollars worldwide, a staggeringly high return rate.

In its second week of release in Japan, the film overwhelmed Hollywood blockbusters, Disney animations, and Venice Golden Lion Award-winning films, topping the Japanese film week box office and began to dominate the charts.

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Faced with this emergency.

Kitano Takeshi and Takakura Bunta had a good mentality. Although "Fireworks" hovered between the second and third place at the box office, compared to the filming costs invested by One Piece Entertainment and Kitano Takeshi Studio, they had already gained both fame and fortune and made a lot of money.

Moreover, this movie not only established Takeshi Kitano's position in the Japanese film industry, but also allowed Bunta Takakura to expand his fame and popularity, although the box office performance was weakened by the intrusion of "Mulan" and "The Ring".

But the final box office of 24 billion yen is already Kitano Takeshi's best box office performance in recent years.

(End of this chapter)