It has been announced that actor Mizukami Koji will star in the film "Kuu Hikui Tori" which will be released on October 3rd. The film is a live-action adaptation of a novel by Hara Hiroshi, winner of the 40th Yokomizo Seishi Mystery & Horror Award (2020), and will be Mizukami's first lead role in a film. The heroine will be Mizuki Yamashita. This will be the first time the two have acted together, and they will play a married couple.
The story begins one day when the protagonist, Kuki Yuji (Mizukami), receives a mysterious diary written by his grandfather's older brother, Sadaichi, who was supposed to have died in the war. From the day he reads the diary, which describes an attachment to life, "I want to eat the fire-eating bird," mysterious events begin to occur frequently around Yuji and his wife, Yuriko (Yamashita). The non-existent "past" caused by Sadaichi's diary slowly erodes "reality." This is a shocking mystery horror that begins with the "diary of the dead."
Mizukami commented about Yuji, "His role was similar to that of a catcher when I played baseball. In the world of 'Kuu Hikui Tori wo, Kuu,' how Yuji sees the world and how he confronts the other characters changes the characters' personalities, and vice versa. Yuji becomes a completely different character just by changing the way the other characters deal with me, so I was conscious of bringing that kind of character to the fore."
"The difficulty was to make Yuji feel what he couldn't see in front of him, and to express as if I was sharpening my body the things that I couldn't see but that Yuji was feeling. I'm looking forward to seeing what form it will take and how it will reach everyone," he said.
Regarding his first co-starring role with Yamashita, he reflected, "I had the impression that he was a man who really hit the key points in his acting. Until now, I've often acted with older people, but Yamashita is the same age as me, but we have completely different backgrounds, so it was really stimulating to be able to work together on this production."
Meanwhile, Yamashita said, "Mizukami-san is the same age as me (25 years old), and I've seen him in various works for a long time. I've always hoped that we would work together, so I was happy that we were able to work together this time. He had a very strong vision for himself from the reading stage, and he remained consistent until the end, so I felt like I was pulled along by him. He's a stoic person with a high level of concentration, and I learned a lot from him."
Author Hara commented, "It feels like such a long time ago when I was looking at photos of cassowaries and thinking about all sorts of things. My fantasies at that time took shape as a novel called, "Eating the Fire-Eating Bird." Then this year, with the help of many staff and cast members, it has been made into a film and is being screened in theaters across the country. I'm sure you'll have a strange and terrifying experience through the big screen. Please look forward to it until the release date."
The film will be directed by Katsuhide Motoki, known for the "Super High Speed! Sankin Kotai" series, "The Flying Tire" and "Shylock's Children," and the script will be written by Tamio Hayashi, who has also worked on "From the Gulag with Love" and "Dear Family."
