On October 21, it was revealed that the WOWOW drama "Drama W Gold Sunset" (6 episodes), starring actor Seiyo Uchino and directed and written by Omori Sumio, will start in 2025. A teaser trailer was also released. The work is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Shirao Yu (Shogakukan), and is a tear-jerking human drama in which people with emotional scars, including the mysterious man played by Uchino, reexamine their lives.
Since his debut in 1993, Uchino has been active at the forefront of the industry for over 30 years. Scriptwriter and director Omori has previously written the scripts for Uchino's starring roles in the film "The Black House" (1999, directed by Morita Yoshimitsu), the NHK Taiga drama "Fuurin Kazan" (2007), and the NHK special drama "Nowhere Country" (2018).
In this work, which marks a new challenge for Uchino, he plays Akutsu Isamu, a mysterious old man who lives in an old apartment. Akutsu shouts loudly and behaves strangely, which makes the middle school girl sitting next to him suspicious, but gradually the reasons for his behavior and his past become clear.
People who are struggling with life in some way, such as the emotionally wounded middle school girl Akutsu meets, a middle-aged woman on the brink of collapse who she meets, a woman with a past workplace trauma, and a young man who keeps telling kind lies to his loved ones, are led by a mysterious thread to the theater company "Taurus Theater". Through these encounters, they are tied together into one story.
The theater company "Taurus Theater" that appears in the play is inspired by the theater company "Saitama Gold Theater", which director Yukio Ninagawa devoted his efforts to in his later years and which only requires participants to be 55 years old or older. Keep an eye out for lines from the play that appear in the play that sync up with the worries of the characters. Cast members other than Uchino will be announced in the future.
The drama will be broadcast and streamed on WOWOW Prime and WOWOW On Demand every Sunday from 10pm in 2025 (the first episode will be broadcast for free).
Comments from Uchino, director and scriptwriter Omori, and original author Shirao are as follows.
◇Comment from Uchino Masaaki (Akutsu Isamu)
--What were your impressions when you were chosen to play the lead role? And how did it feel to actually act in the role?
This is a work that is like an omnibus of the sparkling moments of the senior generation.
The role I was assigned is a man who is trying to climb out of the depths of hell after a mistake he made when he was young.
I superimpose my life on Shakespeare's "King Lear" and try to ask for forgiveness in life by performing in a senior theater company. I felt that it was a role that required an extremely tough spirit. And it was a work that required the power to launch a full-fledged play, and I thought it was a very challenging story.
The character is someone who has given up on life once, and the only way he can have contact with the outside world is by playing Lear, so the tension of hiding his desire to live in his heart and not interacting with people was very difficult. He is a man who knows that he is not allowed to live, and he is trying to achieve atonement by playing Lear to the end. It was my first time doing such an ambitious work, so it was quite difficult. However, we practiced every day as if it were a real play, so I was happy that the senior theater company had become a place where I really felt like my community.
--How was it working with Omori-san, who you have teamed up with on previous scripted works, as the scriptwriter and director this time?
The work is based on a novel, but Omori-san wrote the screenplay, so while the requirements for various scenes are clear, he also directed it based on very deep images, so I'm not sure if I was able to meet his expectations, as his ideals were high. But there are many moving scenes. Rather than a performance performed every night by a regular professional, it was a one-off performance by a retired actor, a once-in-a-lifetime performance, and it also became atonement for his own sins. That was what made it difficult.
--Message to viewers
I think it's a beautiful, sometimes sad story about the desire of various senior generations to live and regenerate.
I also think it's a story that makes you think that the usefulness of theater should be questioned anew.
◇Comment from Shirao Yu (original author)
--How did you feel when it was decided to make a film?
I was about 10% happy and 90% skeptical. I had heard that it generally doesn't get made into a film, so I was afraid of getting too excited. With director and scriptwriter Sumio Omori, lead actor Masaaki Uchino, and production by WOWOW, it's too luxurious to believe.
--What did you think when you saw it?
I'm so excited that the characters are "alive" thanks to the amazing actors! Even though the characters don't appear much in the novel, everyone is full of complicated humanity, and combined with the cinematic visuals, it was a truly worthwhile drama.
-- A message to the viewers.
If you want to see a deep human drama woven by ordinary middle-aged people like me, if you want to see a performance by a group of talented actors, if you like Shakespeare and theater in general, this is the drama we've been waiting for! Please watch the original novel, which has a slightly different plot, until the final episode.
◇ Comment from Omori Sumio (scriptwriter and director)
-- How did you feel when you found out it was going to be adapted into a film?
First of all, when I read Shirao Yu's wonderful novel, I felt that this was not something that could happen to someone else. It depicts something like an affinity between expression and everyday life, and even though it is a story about people involved in the special world of theater, it highlights that this applies to everyone. I was happy to be able to adapt this into a film, and for those of us who live with expression, it felt like the value of its existence was being questioned, so I resolved to put my heart and soul into this work.
--How did you feel when you found out that Uchino Masaaki, with whom you've worked on previous scripts, would play the main character, Akutsu?
When portraying the life of a single person, a single actor, I immediately thought that Uchino Masaaki was the only one who could play a wide range of ages and embody the deep strengths and weaknesses of a person. From my past experiences, I thought that this work would finally come to fruition by facing the high wall of Shakespeare with unwavering trust, worrying and fighting together with him. Uchino lived out Akutsu's life beyond my expectations.
--A message for the viewers?
This is a story of ordinary people who travel through the world of famous stories, but who also struggle to live their humble daily lives. This story features not only Uchino, but a variety of people as its main characters, and we were able to assemble a wonderful cast that was ideal for expressing that. I believed that conveying the charm of each individual would be the theme of the story itself, and created it with the best staff. Please look forward to it.
