Congratulations to Takenouchi Yutaka and his amazing ensemble of co-stars, including Inoue Mao,Yamada Takayuki, Sean McGowan and Daniel Baldwin, for being the first to dethrone “GANTZ” with their epic tale, “Oba: The Last Samurai“.
The movie is based on a true story of Captain Oba and his small group of 47 soldiers during World War II. Remarkably, they were able to survive against 45,000 American soldiers for over one year after they lost the island of Saipain. Three months after the war had ended, they finally surrendered. Some of the American soldiers, especially Don Jones, were so intrigued by the story of Oba and his group that they approached him after the war, asked their former Lieutenant Colonel to return the sword Oba handed over to him when he surrendered and turned the story into a successful novel.
331,967 people saw the movie on its opening weekend, which translates to a box-office revenue of 390 million Yen (4.7 million USD). Over 50% of the moviegoers were 40 years or older, showing that a lot of middle-aged Japanese people still can sympathize with such heroic war stories.
The movie was directed by Hirayama Hideyuki along with Celling Gluck. It’s already set for a release in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Many more distributors from countries such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands have already approached TOHO as well.
By the way, “Ashita no Joe” opened as well, but with Oba and Gantz it could only possibly hope for the bronze medal. Everyone only cares about the winners, so the exact numbers for the opening weekend of Yamashita Tomohisa’s boxing frenzy have yet to be announced.
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Here are some of the trailers for the Japanese movies that opened this week:
“Oba: The Last Samurai” – Starring Talenouchi Yutaka, Sean McGowan and many more
http://www.youtube.com/e/MfLNp4qp6g4
“Ashita no Joe” – Starring Yamashita Tomohisa, Iseya Yusuke, Karina and many more
http://www.youtube.com/e/53yWrnqNf1o
“Patisserie Coin de rue” – Starring Eguchi Yosuke and Aoi Yuu
http://www.youtube.com/e/E6dJ6Xa9vBM
“Gangsta” – Starring Sakimoto Hiromi, Kubota Yuki and many more
http://www.youtube.com/e/GFswW0ztbKM
“Merry-san no Denwa” – Starring Irie Saaya, AKB48’s Kikuchi Ayaka and more
http://www.youtube.com/e/1d3maqxtcEc
Credit(HPriest Tokyohive)
Reposted by : Kishi A