Exclusive Interview with Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Q: The fact that there were a lot of action scenes in this film caught me off guard. I thought it was a little different than your usual work. Recently in Japan, like the theme of this film is people trying to make money without hard work, and people like the Han-gre (non-affiliated gangs) groups are becoming a hot topic in society. What was the inspiration for creating this film?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Yes, it is a combination of several elements. I think it was more than 5 years ago that I started this film, and one of the things was, as you said, that I wanted to do an action film, I have always loved American action movies and have seen many of them since I was young, so I had a very simple desire to do something like that in Japan.

The film faced its greatest challenge when it came to portraying characters who are not commonly associated with Yakuza, policemen, self-defense forces, or hitmen, as most action movies in Japan focus on characters who are exposed to violence in their everyday lives.

Other than that, there are some fantasies that are really out of touch with reality, but they are not any of those. They are ordinary individuals in today’s Japan who are not involved in violence. My intention is to create an action film that features ordinary people being driven into a very extreme situation where they either kill or are killed, and the action commences. The first project began with the idea of creating an action that wasn’t smart and cool, but rather muddled, unrefined, and realistic.

Q : I heard that you have a friend who works in the resale business(A lead character Ryosuke Yoshii played by Masaki Suda who also gets involved in the resale business). After speaking with him, what do you find appealing or dangerous about it, and how did you incorporate it into your script?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Yes, as you said, I had a friend who was in the resale business, which was also a big reason for starting this film. He is a man, but he is basically a very serious person, and he is not good at working in an organization, nor does he have any special talents of his own. Of course, he is not a wealthy man, but he thought about how he could survive in modern Japan, and he started resale. So it is not like a crime at all. It is something that all companies do, such as purchasing really good products at low prices and selling them at high prices. I was making a living by doing this as an individual.

However, I also knew that doing this as an individual would be very risky, and would be next to dangerous and criminal,I thought that this kind of work symbolizes modern Japan, I was very interested in what he had to say, and it helped me a lot when I was working on this script.

Q : As you mentioned earlier, the protagonist of this work is not a Yakuza or a person who has been convicted in the past, but a very ordinary person who ends up in danger by selling for an excessive amount above the cost. I see that some people often post slanderous comments about it in the internet. Some people put their emotions on top of their desires and frustrations because they can’t see their own faces. I think there are some similarities between this film and the ones people leave slanderous comments. What are your own feelings about the vicious acts that the internet society has created?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Yes, I am not familiar enough with the Internet itself to have any particular opinion about it, but I use it in a very ordinary way. Therefore, I think of the Internet itself as a convenient tool, neither good nor bad. However, if there is a problem, I think it is within the human mind. Compared to 50 or 20 years ago, I have no hope for the future, and I am not sure what will happen to me or society as a whole. I feel that even in the hearts of ordinary people, a sense of uncertainty about the future, about themselves or society as a whole, is accumulating.

When the Internet is used as an outlet for such negative feelings, I feel that it has the power to amplify and bring together even the smallest of bad intentions. Of course, if it is used for good, small good intentions can come together and become a very large movement, and of course the Internet has that potential. I am not denying the Internet, but I am aware that when it is used for malicious purposes, it is not that there is some great malicious intent, but that small things can really come together and be amplified.

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Q : As you mentioned, the film also depicts the depressive emotions and dark side of youth, but you teach at the Tokyo University of the Arts, naturally, I am sure that you have met students who are looking at the bright future with hope. In fact, as a teacher, do you find that the values of your students have changed compared to 20 years ago?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: I have no idea about young people in general, but the people I came across at the Tokyo University of the Arts were all talented and had a genuine desire to make films.

In my youth, a simple desire was the driving force behind everything, and despite being childish, I would contemplate ways to attain this desire and accomplish my goals. The process of making movies is challenging, so I focused entirely on achieving my goals. It’s not possible to complete it alone, requires a certain amount of funding, and requires assistance from a group of people.

Nowadays, individuals are intelligent and well-informed, and they seem to be contemplating the wonderful world that awaits them once they have accomplished their goals.

Especially in movies business, I was already 100% satisfied when I was able to do what I wanted to do, but nowadays it is good to do what you want to do, but to be more specific, how will the movie you made be evaluated, how will it be a hit, and so on. It may be natural for them to think about how they themselves will move up to the next stage, but there are people who think rather wisely and make it happen.

However, when people do what they want to do, if they don’t see any future prospects for it, they quickly fall behind. I think that’s what films are about. I think there are many young people who are very anxious about this. I often think that it is enough if they achieve their immediate goals, but I guess it is not that easy.

Q: This time, the main character, Yoshii, seems like a normal young man at first, but he is devious and cunning, he is also stalked by a person who was tricked into buying his reselling products, and he becomes involved in criminal acts, what was it about Masaki Suda that attracted you to cast him in such a difficult role?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: As you know, Suda-san is one of the most popular and talented stars in Japan, but I have seen him in many movies and TV programs. Of course, he has many leading roles, but he also appears in minor supporting roles. I have always been aware that he has a wide range of acting skills, and I have always wanted to work with him someday.

As you mentioned, you were aware that playing the role was a challenging task this time. As previously mentioned, Suda-san started by portraying an ordinary person, and portraying an ordinary person is a really challenging task. He is not characterized by any special traits, he is Japanese, so his feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure are not so clear, and he live his lives in a very ambiguous way, saying “yes” and half the time means “no.” They only respond to others in a vague way.

If anyone could do this, or rather, have the ability to do this and attract the audience’s attention enough as the main character, it would probably be Masaki Suda-san, unless actor has such a strong personality and acting ability, If a mere range of handsome actors were to do it, it would really be just a vague character that people don’t understand. To accurately portray the role’s ambiguity.

I offered him the role because I believed that Masaki Suda was the person who could accurately express the ambiguity of the role. At first, I was really worried about whether he would be able to play such a role. He is not a good person. However, he accepted the role willingly, and I believe that he understood and expressed exactly what I was aiming for.

Q : Actually, when you worked with Masaki Suda, he already had a lot of experience in the film industry, so even though you were a veteran director, did he exchanged his own ideas with you, and were there times when you changed the script using his ideas?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Probably not at all. However, I did not force Suda-san to do anything, so the shooting went very smoothly. I told him in advance that the character was the one I just described, and that was it, and Suda-san told me beforehand that if there was any film that would be useful to him that he would like to see it. At that time, I intuitively thought of an old movie, “Purple Noon,” starring Alain Delon, and I showed it to him.

In that film, the main character is a bad guy, and he is a criminal, and he commits a crime in order to overcome the obstacles in front of him in order to survive. In those days, poverty, discrimination, and various other problems were still very common in society, so that kind of heroic image was probably possible, but recently, we don’t see many such serious and hardworking criminals, and I thought that he was a bit similar to the protagonist of this film, so I took a look at him for reference.

I asked him to watch the movie for reference, and it was probably the first time he had seen it, and he said that “Purple Noon” was very helpful for him and that he understood it very well. I only gave him my rough plan and asked him to work freely within it, (He said) “I understand,” and I think he created his own image of Yoshii by incorporating my plan into his work.

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Q: Yoshii, the main character in this film, is a bit obsessed with the profit from the resale of his film, as you mentioned earlier, most of your films are exhibited at overseas film festivals and distributed overseas, so I think that a certain amount of profit you can be expected. What are your thoughts on profit and marketing in the film industry, and what advice would you give to young people who want to make films? I think there is a conflict between profit and art…

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: This is my weakest area, and it goes back to what I said at the beginning, but I have almost no idea what kind of profit my films are making or not making. As long as I can just barely make a living, I am fine with that. That’s the difference between me and the young people. If you really want to make a profit, you should probably do something that is not a movie, In Japan at least, movies are a gamble, and you never know what will or won’t make a profit.

If you understand and follow the rules, it is not necessarily true that you will have a hit next time, I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing in Japan, but the profits made from films are rarely returned to the filmmakers.

Even if there is a profit, it may be taken by some company or someone else. If a profit is made, we are very happy because it will lead to the next job, but it would be better to have something good that will lead to the next film production, I have been making films without any regard to the profit margin, and I would like young people to start their filmmaking from that point, if possible.

If young people can do so, I would like them to start their filmmaking from such a starting point. If they start pursuing profits at some point, that is fine, but if they start making films in pursuit of profits from the beginning, I don’t think it will produce very interesting results.

Q : This film was entry for the Academy Awards as a representative of Japan, and it was also shown at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, how do you feel about the response to your film overseas, and what are your honest opinions about your entry for the Academy Awards?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: As for the Academy Awards, I don’t really feel that I represented Japan, but one thing I can say is that I was wondering if “Cloud” was really okay, or was there nothing else? I can say that one thing I can say is that I am not sure if “Cloud” is really the right choice, and I am frankly wondering if there was nothing else.

I’m sure someone from Japan must have chosen it, but I’ve made several films that are a little more serious and fully focused on, for example, humanism or something social, but those films never selected. I was honestly anxious and wondered, “Is it really okay to make “Cloud,” where people are dying at the end? I honestly feel a sense of uneasiness, or rather, a sense of being baffled by fox(Japanese proverb, it means the changing weather just came out of the blue)

I was surprised to see the complete difference in the reaction of the audience at the Venice International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, as I have shown my films abroad. It happens often, but to put these things simply, at the Venice International Film Festival, everyone was really watching the scene with holding their breath. It was really quiet, not a single person walked away, and the place was very still. The Toronto International Film Festival was quite funny.

Rather than being funny, it was scary, and there was a sense of laughter at the unexpectedness of such a turn of events, the screening was quite funny, and the audience’s reaction was quite different from the others. However, everyone watched it until the end, especially the young people, because there was a certain amount of flashy action at the end,

I believe that the young people would have enjoyed it to a certain extent, and whether they were in a scene or laughing, they would have found it very interesting until the end, and especially the last part would have been exciting to watch.

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Here’s the trailer of the film.