Interview 062906EH

"Hogas (Japanese movies) in general are coming into fashion in Japan these days, in the face of the Hollywood slump. It is true that some big Hollywood blockbusters, such as "Star Wars" and Pixer animations, still surpass 10 billion yen box office gross, while hogas are called "big hits" if they reach 4-5 billion yen. But there are more of these 4-5 billion yen hogas lately, and some even go higher and sneak closely to the Hollywood level.

This year, "Umizaru 2 - Test of Trust" surprised many with an amazing popularity, and is estimated to reach 7 billion yen cummulatively. Its opening weekend gross was second only to the historical top live-action hoga, "Bayside Shakedown 2". Both "Bayside" and "Umizaru" share the same business formula, combination with TV drama and movie sequels, and share the same TV station, Fuji, as an investor. Fuji's powerful producer Chihiro Kameyama is also involved in the both series.

The original movie "Umizaru" was released in 2004, and the TV series was broadcasted in 2005. And "Umizaru 2", which opened in Japan in May 2006 and still is in theaters at the time of writing, was screened for the first time in the U.S. on June 29, 2006, at New York Asian Film Festival. Director Eiichiro Hazumi and actor Ryuta Sato answered our questions on the day of the event.

Key for Success - "Never Give Up"

"Umizaru 2" is a straight forward hero story of a Japan Coast Guard rescue member. The hero, Daisuke Senzaki played by Hideaki Ito, is at the transition stage in his career as a rescue specialist stationed in Kagoshima, questioning his professional ability due to one recent unfortunate incident at an emergency situation. While his girlfriend, played by Ai Kato, is visiting him from Tokyo, a large ferry boat wrecked in Kagoshima bay, and Daisuke and the team go to rescue the passengers. The ship's damage turns out to be much more serious than was thought, and Daisuke and his buddy Yoshizaki, played by Ryuta Sato, get confined into the bottom of the sinking ship with two injured passengers. His will to save all of them, as well as his girlfriend's trust in him, is seriously tested.

In our interview, Director Hazumi points out, "the major success factor of the film is its theme, 'never give up'. I think this theme was strongly supported by the Japanese movie goers in all ages. I myself was surprised to see such a scale of success, though. (laughs)"

Watching the actual movie, I somewhat understood what he says. I cannot recall such a straight-forward, feel-good hero movie among recent ones, either foreign or Japanese, in which a physically strong and nice looking hero goes through a series of struggles and saves the day, kissing a beautiful woman at the end. Many of the critically well received movies are too complex for main stream fans, and the big budget blockbusters are often CG-heavy fantasies that do not deliver the physicality of human beings. "Umizaru", in a way, fills this gap. Instead of the traditional Hollywood heroism, Japanese fans has embraced the new Hoga heroism.

Tough Diving Training and Reality Pursuit

While this type of panic/action movie with love flavor is not uncommon, Hazumi says he made "Umizaru" special by his "do it yourself" strategy. The rescue team's diving sequences are acted by main actors themselves, not by stunts. Hazumi put them into the half-documentary-like extreme environments, to make them act naturally.

Of course, actors were well prepared. It is known that they were given rigorous diving trainings. Many of the cast are the same for the original movie, TV series and/or this sequel, so they have been acting divers for a long time as well.

Ryuta Sato, who plays Senzaki's buddy both in TV and "Umizaru 2", says, "I took 2 months training before going into the TV shooting, and kept on training on the course of TV and this movie. I could not even swim before that." But in the movie, he did a dangerous under-water scene quite impressively. "The most difficult thing in acting in the water was that the body was very unstable, and because of that, filming of one scene takes one hour, much longer than on land."

Coast Guard effect

The film inevitably had to ask for a full cooperation by Japan Coast Guard from the beginning. Normally, Japanese government offices are notorious as non-cooperative and hard to deal with, but in the case of "Umizaru" series, it sounds like JCG was an exception.

Hazumi says, "even from the beginning, JCG was willing to cooperate. But because they were not accustomed to the filming schedule, there were some confusions at the beginning. It is hard for them to understand that it takes several months to shoot a two-hour movie." But they stuck with the series and got a big pay-off. "Applications to JCG increased by 20% because of the series," Hazumi states, and as a result, the production team was awarded with a certificate of appreciation by JCG.

New Era for Big Budget Hogas

Traditionally, big hit movies such as "Umizaru" series and "Bayside Shakedown" series did not make it to the overseas market at all, while smaller art-house movies have better chance to get foreign distribution.

On this point, Hazumi says, "the big budget hogas were hard to make in Japan in the past. You can watch Hollywood movies paying the same ticket price, so people used to favor Hollywood. Now things are different and this type of big Japanese movies are also well accepted. 'Umizaru 2' sold better than 'Poseidon', and that tells you something. So in that sense, I believe that the big hogas will be more accepted overseas if we make a long-term marketing effort from now."

Ryuta Sato also was happy to be in this "big hoga". He states, "to participate in a big budget Japanese movie has been a dream since I was a small child. It trully is a dream come true."