Latest News from Japan Zone & Japan Store

Actor Chii Takeo (61) has married a former model twelve years his junior. The couple spent last year with his 28-year old daughter at her New York home. Chii lost his former wife to cancer in 2001, a tragedy that eerily echoed the role he was playing at the time in the classic drama “Kita no Kuni Kara”. He went through a period of deep depression following his wife’s death and met his current wife after she wrote a letter of consolation to him. Identified only as “A-san,” she is a divorcee with a 24-year old son.

21-year old singer songwriter Utada Hikaru made her first live appearance in three and a half years at the Budokan in Tokyo yesterday. She was obviously nervous and flubbed the words to several of her songs. The 10,000 fans didn’t seem to mind, and if anything it seemed to reinforce her image of the ordinary girl turned pop star. It was also announced that her first greatest hits album will go on sale on March 31. “Single Collection Vol.1” will feature all 15 singles released over the last five years, including 8 million-sellers. All the tracks have been remastered by US engineer Ted Jensen. Hikki plans to launch her US career in April under the name Utada.

Actress Itoh Misaki (26) is to play a Bond girl in a new video game. In “Everything or Nothing” she plays lab assistant Miss Nagai. The game will be available this month for PlayStation and GameBoy. Itoh is one of the TV commercial pitch girls (the others are Hasegawa Kyoko and Takeuchi Yuko) who hava taken over the scene in the last few months.

• Rock band Queen have another No.1 album in Japan, only 27 years after their last one. “A Day At the Races” reached the top of the Oricon charts back in 1977 and now the hits album “Queen Jewels” has repeated the feat. This breaks the 23-year 5-month record previously held by the Beatles. One big reason for the new album’s success is the use of the track “Born to Love You” as the title song for the Kimura Takuya drama “Pride,” currently in the Monday 9pm prime slot.

This is turning out to be a good year for samurai movies. Watanabe Ken (43) has added to his Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actor for “The Last Samurai” with an Oscar nod. And “Tasogare Seibei,” a multi-award winner in Japan last year has been given a surprise nomination as Best Foreign Film. Released in the US as “The Twilight Samurai” it stars Sanada Hiroyuki (43) – who also appears in “The Last Samurai” – and Miyazawa Rie (photo, 30). The Yamada Yoji period feature is the first Japanese movie to be nominated in the category for 22 years.

• It was announced yesterday that former Fuji TV announcer Kondo Sato (35) remarried on December 24 and is expecting a baby in the summer. It is her second marriage. She divorced kabuki actor Bando Yasosuke (47) in 1999 after less than two years, citing differences over having children. Her partner this time is event producer Imaoka Hirokazu (42).

Actor Matsudaira Ken (50) and actress Daichi Mao (47) announced recently that they divorced at the end of December, saying that they had grown apart. Daichi, one of Japan’s most beautiful actresses, retains the huge and luxurious Minato Ward, Tokyo home they shared. Residents of the area said they had heard rumors of the couple living apart for several years. Daichi was a former star of the famous all-female Takarazuka theater troupe. Matsudaira made his debut under the legendary Katsu Shintaro in his Zatoichi TV series in 1975. His most famous role is that of the Abarenbo Shogun in the series of that name, a part he played 830 times between 1978 and 2003.

Pop idol group Morning Musume said goodbye to one of its few surviving original members yesterday. The Hello! Project concert at the Yokohama Arena was the final appearance as an MM member for Abe Natsumi (22). Younger member Tsuji Nozomi (16) was so overcome by the situation that she collapsed. Thanking the 12,000 fans for their support over the last six and a half years, “Natchi” asked for them to help make her solo career just as successful. As perhaps the most popular member of the group, her future success is all but guaranteed.

• Yesterday, Watanabe Ken (43) didn’t manage to become the first Japanese actor to win a Golden Globe award, for Best Supporting actor in “The Last Samurai.” The award went to Tim Robbins for his role in “Mystic River.”

Actor Watanabe Ken (43) headed off for Los Angeles yesterday to attend Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards, to be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. He is the first Japanese actor in 47 years to be nominated for an award. Watanabe co-starred alongside Tom Cruise and Sanada Hiroyuki in “The Last Samurai,” a fictional epic tale of honor lost and found in the early Meiji era. By coincidence, he shared first class with several of the cast of “Lord of the Rings,” in Japan on a PR trip. The final episode in that movie saga opens here on February 14.

It was announced yesterday that actress Nakayama Miho (photo, 33) gave birth to her first child on the 17th of this month in Paris. She and her husband, musician Tsuji Jinsei (43), have named their new son Juto. Nakayama is said to be planning to return to work within the year.

• Veteran actor Nishida Toshiyuki (54) was a first-time winner at this year’s Blue Ribbon movie awards. He won for his lead roles in “Tsuri Baka Nikki 14” (Diary of a Fishing Fool) and “Geroppa” (think of James Brown’s hit Sex Machine to work out the ‘meaning’). You may remember Nishida as Pigsy in the classic TV series Monkey. Other Blue Ribbon winners were actress Terajima Shinobu, who also starred in the Best Film “Akame Shijuyataki Shinjumisui,” and flavor of the month Watanabe Ken, who won a special award for “The Last Samurai.”

The family of the late Kurosawa Akira are suing NHK over last year’s hit taiga drama series Musashi. They claim that the story and eleven scenes from the first episode of the yearlong period drama were lifted directly from Kurosawa’s 1954 classic film “Shichinin no Samurai” (Seven Samurai) and are demanding ¥150 million in compensation. Musashi was yet another tale of the life of legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, perhaps Japan’s most famous samurai. It starred kabuki actor Ichikawa Shinnosuke (photo, 26) in the lead role.

Oscar winning actress Jennifer Connelly (33) is to star in a Hollywood remake of the Japanese horror movie “Honogurai Mizu no Soko Kara” (From the Depths of the Gloomy Water). In “Dark Water” she will have the role, played by Kuroki Hitomi (photo, 43) in the 2001 original, of a mother protecting her young daughter from an evil spirit. Other names associated with the project include Tim Roth, John C. Reilly and Pete Postlethwaite. Filming of the movie was scheduled to start in Toronto this week.