Hard Romanticker - Shota Matsuda Goes Gangster

Just a brief post on a movie I recently subtitled for Toei studios entitled Hard Romanticker (『ハードロマンチッカー』). There's no official site yet but Toei has a release page for it. When I translated the press notes it had been slated for an early spring 2012 release but has now been pushed forward to November 26.

The film is directed by Japan-born Korean Gu Su-yeon, whose last feature was The Yakiniku Movie: Bulgogi (『THE 焼肉 MOVIE プルコギ』), starring Matsuda Ryûhei. Hard Romanticker's cast is led by Ryûhei's younger brother Shôta, whom you know from Ikigami or TV drama/movie franchises Liar Game and Boys Over Flowers. Or if you're more kuwashii about your Japanese cinema, you may have seen him in Ômori Tatsushi's dark indie effort A Crowd of Three (Kenta to Jun to Kayo-chan no Kuni,『ケンタとジュンとカヨちゃんの国』) which had its world premiere at TOKYO FILMeX in 2009.

Hard Romanticker is based on Gu's semi-autobiographical eponymous novel published in 2001 by Kadokawa Haruki's imprint. With his hair dyed platinum blonde, Matsuda stars as "Gu," a second-generation Korean living life as a high school dropout working part-time jobs and getting into violent conflicts on the streets of Shimonoseki. A brutal act of revenge gone wrong sets the story in motion. Gu is tangentially involved at best, but with his paradoxical mix of guilt, cold detachment and violent nihilism he pisses off one too many people and ends up a target of the whole town.

Shimonoseki (Yamaguchi prefecture) is of course the birthplace of legendary Japanese film star Matsuda Yûsaku, daddy of both aforementioned Matsuda brothers and himself of half-Korean ancestry (see Midnight Eye's feature: Yusaku Matsuda: Lost Rebel). The project is going for synergy with the Matsuda name, its rebellious protagonist, the zainichi angle and the location (there's also a sojourn over the bridge to the blingy Kokura district of Kitakyûshû).

Toei Animation excepted, some feel Toei studios proper has lost its identity over the years. They're hoping to regain some of their old-school mojo with Hard Romanticker and future projects. I'll let the paid and pro-am film critics have the last word but I think Hard Romanticker is a fairly cool Mean Streets-like film for the current generation here.

Hard Romanticker features a large cast of juvenile delinquents played by Nagayama Kento, Emoto Tokio, Watabe Gôta, Kawano Naoki, Ochiai Tomoki, Endô Yûya, Kaneko Nobuaki, Ishigaki Yuma and Endô Kaname. Bringing a dose of adult reality to the film are Maki Claude (good to see him again), Watanabe Dai, Ashina Sei, Maki Yôko, Nakamura Shidô, Watabe Atsurô (amusing), Hakuryu and super-veteran Awaji Keiko (her debut was Kurosawa's Stray Dog!).