Yearly Archives: 2007

Kawase Naomi (37) is the first Japanese in 17 years to take the Grand Prix at Cannes. “Mogari no Mori” (The Mourning Forest) was announced as the runner-up at the 60th Cannes Film Festival on Sunday. “Making film is so tough and resembles life,” said a tearful Kawase at the awards ceremony. “There are many difficulties in life. Invisible things, the memory of the deceased… we can stand alone when we find ourselves to be supported by such things. Thank you very much for appreciating the movie.” Her latest film is about a man with dementia (Uda Shigeki) living in a small retirement home and a female caregiver (Ono Machiko) who lost her child. Together they wander in a forest seeking his wife’s grave. The film was shot in a small town and the mountains near Kawase’s hometown of Nara and captures some of the surviving natural beauty of Japan. The festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, went to the pre-announcement favorite, Romanian film “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”. Kawase has won at Cannes before – she was the youngest ever director to win the Camera d’Or award for best debut film with “Moe no Suzaku” in 1997. The last Japanese film to win the Grand Prix was Oguri Kouhei’s “Shi no Toge” in 1990.

• Veteran comedian Hagimoto Kinichi is to be the oldest ever celebrity to do the 100km run for NTV’s annual charity telethon. Having just turned 66, he will be seven years older than lawyer Maruyama Kazuya was when he completed the run in 2005. He told fellow comedian Shimada Shinsuke on a live variety show, “I told them I can’t run, but I’d do it anyway. I’ll just grit my teeth and run.” “Kin-chan”, as he is affectionately known, was the first ever emcee for the telethon 30 years ago. These days he is most often seen in his role as manager of the Ibaraki Golden Golds amateur baseball team.

The first reported romance for new Morning Musume leader Fujimoto Miki (22) is none other than comedian Shoji Tomoharu (31). “Mikiti” has been spotted several times spending the night at Shoji’s Tokyo apartment by weekly gossip magazine “Friday”, who published the photos in today’s issue. Friends say they have been dating since at least last autumn. Apart from being a top idol, Fujimoto is also something of an athlete and the “ace striker” for the Hello! Project’s futsal team. Shoji (photo right) is one half of the popular comedy duo Shinagawa Shoji, regulars on the variety show circuit, and is the one who is always ready to remove his t-shirt and show off his muscular physique. This latest match up between a comedian and a popular female beauty reinforces the image of a romantic boom for Japan’s funny men.

• The Tokyo District Court has dropped the indictments against comedian Udo Suzuki (37) and actor Miwa Akihiro (72). Both were involved in separate traffic accidents in the last couple of months. But in both cases, there were only minor injuries and they have been settled by the respective insurance companies.

Movie director Kumai Kei died yesterday at a Tokyo hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 76. As reported here on Monday, Kumai was taken to the hospital last Friday after a newspaper delivery man discovered him unconscious outside his Tokyo home. He was best known for tackling social issues in movies such as the hugely successful “Kurobe no Taiyo” (Tunnel to the Sun, 1968), about the construction of the famous Kurobe Dam, and “Umi to Dokuyaku” (The Sea and Poison, 1986), which won the Silver Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Johnny Depp (43), Orlando Bloom (30) and other members of the cast and crew of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” landed in Japan yesterday. Hundreds of fans crowded the arrivals lobby at Narita Airport from early morning, divided into two main groups depending on their loyalty to one star or the other. They numbered in their thousands by the time Bloom arrived at 6:15pm. Depp showed up in his private jet three hours later. Both stars took their time passing through the lobby allowing fans, some in tears, to give presents and take photos. The third episode of the hugely successful movie trilogy opens worldwide on May 25, though it has its Asia premiere tonight at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo.

The wife of actor/talento Kishibe Shiro (57) died last month of sudden heart failure, it was revealed yesterday. She was just 43. Kishibe awoke on the morning of April 6 and hurt himself getting out of bed. He went downstairs where his wife Saori told him to go back to bed and lie down for a while. When he awoke an hour later he went downstairs only to discover his wife collapsed on the floor. He tried to resuscitate her as he waited for an ambulance but she was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. In the last year she had complained several times of difficulty breathing but had refused to see a doctor. Kishibe is said to be wasting away at his Yokohama home in a state of shock and unable to speak. The couple had been married since 1994. Kishibe rose to fame as a member of the 60s group The Tigers and later playing the water sprite in the popular 70s TV series “Saiyuki” (shown abroad as “Monkey”, and Kishibe’s character was known as Sandy). He first married in 1971 and had two children. Poor financial decisions led him to declare bankruptcy in the late 90s, but it was this image that became his gimmick after his return to showbiz a few years later.

• Police recently nabbed talento Uehara Sakura (30) for speeding and driving with an expired license, it was revealed yesterday. She was given a speeding ticket late on the night of May 15 when police stopped her for driving over 80km/h in a 60km/h zone on a bypass in Tokyo. She said she hadn’t realized that her license expired at the end of April. She has already renewed her license and paid the fines. In typical fashion, TV Asahi will either cut scenes including Uehara from today’s edition of “Ai no Apron” or include a subtitle to say the show was filmed before the incident.

• Actress and former idol singer Minamino Yoko (39) has a new love in her life. She and creative director Yanai Michihiko (43) first met last September while he was directing the video for Nagasawa Masami’s debut single, the theme tune for a TV drama reprisal of a popular 80s movie. Minamino became a star back in the mid-80s due to her role in a similar drama series, “Sukeban Deka II”. Yanai is a musician and has been the creative force behind such TV ad campaigns as Tower Records’ “No Music, No Life”, Fuji TV’s “Kikkake wa, Fuji Terebi” and Shiseido’s “Uno”.

Some of Japan’s biggest stars are at Cannes this week. Kitano “Beat” Takeshi (60) is there as one of the 35 directors who took part in a compilation movie to celebrate the Film Festival’s 60th anniversary. Takeshi’s 3-minute comedy segment, the second in “To Each His Own Cinema”, was well received. The short will be shown with Takeshi’s upcoming new feature, “Kantoku Banzai”, set to open on June 2. True to form, he turned up at the red carpet event wearing a traditional hakama and a silly “chonmage” wig. “In 60 years probably no one has done anything as stupid as that. Next I’d like wear a hakama to the Oscars, and when my name is called take it off and show my arse! If I get an honorary Oscar at the age of 90, I’ll probably soil myself and cause real mayhem.” Fellow comedian Matsumoto Hitoshi was visibly nervous at the first ever screening of “Dai Nipponjin”, his debut as a movie director. But the unique comedy got a standing ovation on Saturday night from the audience of 800, and it has already had distribution offers from ten countries. Also on Saturday night, two members of pop group SMAP were giving a party to promote their respective movies. Kimura Takuya (34) is plugging “Hero”, the latest spinoff from a hugely successful Fuji TV drama series. Bandmate Katori Shingo (30) is promoting the movie adaptation of his recent TV version of “Saiyuki” (Journey to the West, also known as Monkey). The party drew about 800 guests from some 12 countries.

• Top kabuki star Nakamura Kanzaburo (51) has been penalized by the Tokyo tax authorities for failure to declare some ¥70 million in income. The undeclared income was from a period of three years up to 2005 and was received during the course of parties and other events to commemorate his succession to his current stage name. His sons, Kantaro (25) and Shichinosuke (24) have also been investigated as their fictional expenses were allegedly used as tax write offs. Including penalties, Kanzaburo has been hit with a tax bill of about ¥30 million. He has disputed the audit results, adding that the official statements are defamatory. But he does have a history of run-ins with the tax man, the last dating to late 1999. At the time he fessed up and handed over some ¥6 million in taxes and penalties.

Actress Shiozawa Toki died of cancer at a Tokyo hospital late Thursday night. She was 79. She had been battling the disease for most of her adult life since she was first discovered to have tongue cancer at the age of 30. She was at the peak of her popularity on the variety show circuit in 1984 when she was found to have breast cancer. She underwent a second mastectomy in 2004. In April 2006 she underwent surgery for the fourth time but the cancer had spread throughout her body. She was released from hospital in November but her health deteriorated again in February and she was re-admitted. She made her movie debut with the major Toei studio shortly after WWII and had her first and only starring role in 1954. With her outlandish hairstyles and glasses and crude humor, she shot to fame 30 years later on the Fuji TV afternoon talk show “Itadakimasu”.

• Romance has blossomed between actress Kimura Yoshino (31) and actor Iseya Yuusuke (30). The pair worked together last September on the upcoming Miike Takashi movie “Sukiyaki Western Jango”. They spent more than a month filming in a remote mountain location in Yamagata Prefecture and started dating after their return to Tokyo. They have recently been spotted shopping together for interior goods. It is the first reported romance for Kimura since her debut in 1996. Iseya was previously linked with actress Hirosue Ryoko in 1999 and with Yoshikawa Hinano in 2003.

• Movie director Kumai Kei (76) was taken to hospital on Friday after a newspaper delivery man discovered him unconscious outside his Tokyo home. He recovered consciousness later and is said to have suffered a stroke.

At the age of 46, comedienne Hisamoto Masami may have found love at last, according to today’s issue of the weekly gossip magazine “Friday”. The article says that a handsome company heir, named only as “A-san” and said to be in his early 30s, spends several nights a week at Hisamoto’s Tokyo apartment. In a press release from her management agency she said, “He’s a good friend. I may be buck-toothed but I’m also a woman, so I’m gonna go on a date now and then. Korekara mo Yorochikubiii!”. The last part is one of her famous nipple puns! Known for her often crude humor and a veteran of the Wahaha Honpo comedy troupe, Hisamoto often ranks among Japan’s most popular TV celebrities. A-san is the third generation heir to his family’s business and is said to resemble a “macho version of soccer star Miura Kazu”.

• Director Kawase Naomi (37) is attending the Cannes Film Festival for the third time, as her movie “Magori no Mori” is the only Japanese entry in the competition section. She was a guest, along with her 3-year-old son, at a reception for the Japan Contents Festival held yesterday. Kawase won the Camera d’Or award for best directorial debut with “Moe no Suzaku” in 1997 and had “Sharasojyu” in competition in 2003. As this year is the 60th anniversary of the festival, she says she doesn’t get much attention because a lot of big names are in town. But she reckons her latest feature is in with a chance of taking the Palm d’Or.

• Troubled enka singer Mori Shinichi (59) brought the curtain down for the final time on his “Jagaimo no Kai” charity concert yesterday. He started the annual event 23 years ago when he married idol singer Mori Masako (48). But a battle with hepatitis, a messy divorce and an artistic dispute that prevents him from performing some of his greatest hits have led him to call it a day. Not that he’s retiring – he gave the first performance of his latest single, “Jinsei Hitasura”, set for release on May 23. More than 20 acts were on hand yesterday to lend their support, as was Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

Former pin-up girl Aota Noriko (39) is one of the celebrities labeled “make-inu” in Japanese showbiz, a phrase that literally means “loser dog” and is given to female celebs thought incapable of getting married. But following the revelation yesterday that she’s been married and divorced, her reputation is probably worse than ever. It turns out she married a 38-year-old restaurant owner in 2004 at a time when her career was going nowhere. She told no one but family and close friends, not even her fellow former members of the popular 90s “sexy group” C.C. Girls. But her career took a strange twist shortly after her marriage. She was one of several women, including actress Sugita Kaori (42), former porn star Iijima Ai (34) and model Rinka (33), who were panelists on the new hit TV Asahi variety show “London Hearts”. Hosted by comedy duo London Boots, the key to the show’s success was its focus on the loser status of these and other female celebrities, most of them on the wrong side of 30. They ranked each other on things like who the public would say would make the worst girlfriend, marriage or sex partner. The success of the show and her new image as “Bubble Aota”, someone psychologically stuck in the bubble economy years of the early 1990s, led to more TV appearances. As her public persona became more and more divorced from her private reality, her husband filed for an actual divorce in 2005. But they remain close and have talked about possibly getting remarried once their lifestyles have settled down.

A popular afternoon “wide show” is the latest casualty of the shake up at Nippon Terebi. In September “Za Waido” (The Wide; Mon-Fri, 1:55-3:50pm), hosted by Kusano Hitoshi (63) and Mori Fumi (33), is to end its 15-year run as the mainstay of NTV’s afternoon schedule. Popularly known as Nittere, NTV was king of the audience rankings for ten straight years up to 2003. It held the top spot for “golden time” (7-10pm), “prime time” (7-11pm) and all day (6am-12am) rankings. But since it dropped to second behind Fuji TV in 2004, it has been making major changes to its lineup. Last year it dropped the news show “NNN Kyou no Dekigoto” after 52 years, replacing it with “News Zero”. “Za Waido” first came on the air in 1993 and was unusual at the time for the fact that it didn’t start on the hour, now common practice for news and info shows. It is co-produced by NTV and Yomiuri TV, but the latter has decided to pull out and NTV felt they couldn’t afford to continue financing the show alone. It’s still doing well in its 2-hour mid-afternoon time slot, but TV Asahi’s re-runs of popular drama series is top of the rankings. It’s likely that NTV will be looking to re-jig both that slot and the hour following it that it currently fills with a drama re-run.

• Actress Yonekura Ryoko has been chosen as Miss Lily 2007. Sponsored by the The Netherlands International Flower Bulb Center, the award is given each year to the woman who looks best holding a bunch of lilies. Of course, reporters were more interested in asking her about rumors that she has rekindled her romance with kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizo (29). She insisted that since their breakup at the end of 2005 they are just good friends, despite the fact that she flew all the way to Paris in March to watch him perform. Since their split Ebizo has been linked with actresses Sato Eriko and Takaoka Saki and a current, unnamed girlfriend.