Kofu and the Movie Industry

*The blog thumbnail is from a 2017 festival called Kofu-jo de Aima Show. Films were shown, outdoors, at Maizuru Castle and included Moonlight and Moonrise Kingdom.

First off, director Katsuya Tomita is from Kofu. Though he sometimes operates as far away as Thailand (Bangkok Nites), he maintains connections with Kofu. Both Saudade and Tenzo were shot in Yamanashi and his movies feature music by local hip-hop collective, stillichimiya.

(Clicking on the movie posters will take you to each film’s official site.)

(Clicking on movie titles will take you to their IMDb page.)

Actress Mariko Tsutsui, also from Kofu, appeared in the NHK drama, Hanako and Anne, which told the story of Hanako Muraoka and the first Japanese translation of Anne of Green Gables. Parts of the drama were filmed in Yamanashi. Tsutsui won awards for Harmonium (淵に立つ, Fuchi ni Tatsu) acting alongside Tadanobu Asano - possibly the contemporary Japanese actor with the most international exposure.

Director Hitoshi Yazaki, whose 1980 film Afternoon Breezes was called a “pioneer of Japanese LGBTQ cinema” by the Japan Times, is also from Yamanashi. His 2020 film, Sakura, will feature Nana Komatsu. She grew up in Yamanashi, going to high school in Hokuto City. You can see her in Martin Scorcese’s Silence.

Finally, from Yamanashi, is Izuru Narushima, director of the winner of the 2011 Japanese Academy Prize for Best Picture, Rebirth (八日目の蝉, Yokame no Semi). His film, Solomon’s Perjury (ソロモンの偽証, Soromon no Gishou), is about junior high school students investigating a classmate’s death. Narushima used schools in Otsuki and Fuefuki for locations.

That leads us to other Yamanashi shooting locations. Using the Internet Movie Database’s location search, it looks like Fuji Five Lakes beats out Kofu for filmmakers. However, the list is obviously far from complete, as some of the previously mentioned movies don’t show up in the search results. One of the interesting results is Tora-san’s Dream-Come-True. It’s part of the Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, "It's tough being a man”) series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi. The series holds the “Guinness World Record for longest-running movie series starring a single actor.” Unfortunately, having watched the trailer, I can’t find any places that I can recognize - unless that temple is Kai-Zenkoji?

In a very, very brief scene in Lost in Translation, Bill Murray is playing golf at the foot of Mt. Fuji, at Kawaguchiko Country Club.

An interesting, all-Japanese website - the Yamanashi Film Commission - lists the Yamanashi locations of several previously mentioned movies, plus many more films and TV shows. There are quite a few photos in which you can see Kofu streets, Maizuru Castle, some government buildings, shrines, schools, libraries, and more.

Finally, I have my own personal experience with film in Kofu. My wife and I were checking out fliers in front of Sakura-za (a great source of info on local events as well as a great host of local events.)  Before we could move on, we were held up - a man didn’t want us to cross the street. Across from Sakura-za, at the end of the Nakamise shopping arcade, was a small film crew.

Sakuraza - cafe/bar, live music, and promoter of local events

Above the Nakamise Shopping Arcade entrance

The man’s duties were to keep pedestrians from entering the location and to tell the shooting crew when the street was free from traffic, and thus free from noise. My wife asked the man, I guess he was an assistant director, about the film and the stars. He was really coy about it, like “Oh, it’s a famous star. You know him. Everyone knows him.” My wife’s not one for guessing, so after a bit he just told us - it was Koichi Sato. Now, I don’t know who he is but, according to IMDb again, he has 100 feature film credits. We couldn’t see the scene - Sato-san throwing some guy against a shuttered store front - but we sure could hear it. However, as they finished their final take and wrapped up, I did see Sato-san shaking the hands of the crew. Famous and classy. The movie is called 64 (“six-four”, rather than “sixty-four") and that scene is included in the trailer, around 1:07.

If that was too fast…

This is Kofu. Nakamise entrance, a sort of rough, old-style look, and the てんとうむし sign from the trailer.

I can’t tell you anything about the movie, I’ve never seen it. However, there’s a sequel and I know someone who saw the first part on her flight to Japan and was dying to see the second part.

One last movie experience - I was driving home (to Showa-cho, some years ago) and I thought it would be quicker to use Kokubo Street and Ichikawa Daimon-sen than to stay on Route 20. Totally mistaken - there were tons of people walking down each side of the street. It looked like a concert had just finished and everyone was splitting at the same time. As it turns out, there had been filming at a run-down gas station for a movie starring Exile Tribe!

I think this guy. . .

. . . was here.