Actor Wakana Matsumoto appeared at a press conference held at the NHK Broadcasting Center (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) on March 4th for the drama "Taiketsu" (NHK BS/BS Premium 4K, Sundays at 10pm, 5 episodes in total), in which she stars and which starts on April 5th.
Matsumoto plays Hiba Kikuno, a newspaper reporter investigating irregularities in the medical school entrance exam. Honami Suzuki, who plays Kanbayashi Harumi, a director at the medical school who is in conflict with Hiba, also attended the press conference. The drama has five episodes, and there are three main scenes in which the two face off. Suzuki revealed, "There are also switches between offense and defense, and there is a kind of fun 'Matsumoto vs. Suzuki' showdown."
This is Matsumoto's first time playing the role of a reporter, and she is in the opposite position to herself, but she set the bar high by saying, "In the future, when I am interviewed, I would like to think more than ever about what kind of thoughts (reporters) had when they came up with questions, and I would like to answer more carefully than ever before."
The drama is a socially conscious entertainment piece based on the novel of the same name by Tsukimura Rei (Kobunsha). After hearing rumors that a certain medical school is intentionally lowering female students' scores during the grading process for entrance exams, newspaper reporter Hiba Kikuno (Matsumoto) begins her own investigation and sets her sights on Kanbayashi Harumi (Suzuki), a director of the medical school. Kanbayashi skillfully evades her questioning, but Hiba, believing that this is her only chance of breaking through, tenaciously approaches the core of the matter. The two women have faced countless injustices in a male-dominated society. Their respective beliefs clash, forcing them to become enemies, and the outcome of their battle takes an unexpected turn...
The script is written by Watanabe Mako, who has worked on the TV drama "Love Lasts Forever" (TBS, 2020), and the film is directed by Ikeda Chihiro, who has worked on the film "Kowloon Generic Romance." The music is by Koyama Erina. Filming took place in the Kanto region from December last year to February this year.
