Starring film unexpectedly struggles…First starring role in 9 years in Tsuki 9 “A crucial moment for actor Kimura Kimutaku at age 50”.

Drama “Kazama Kochin – Kyobo 0” (Fuji Television) is scheduled to start airing on April 10 in the Tsuki 9 slot. It is a serialized version of a work that has been aired twice in special editions in the past. The drama will star Takuya Kimura (50), who plays the main character Kazama, in his first starring role in nine years and his first collaboration with Yui Aragaki (34), and has attracted a lot of attention even before it begins airing.

It was an evening in mid-March when I saw Kimura at a building in Minato Mirai, Yokohama. Surrounded by a large number of extras and security guards, he was filming, not for “Kyobo” ……, but apparently for a commercial-related shoot.

Kimura has been the subject of some unfavorable news recently. The movie in which he stars, “Legend & Butterfly,” is struggling.

The film has grossed over 2 billion yen at the box office, but it cost 2.5 billion yen in production and advertising expenses, and considering the fact that the film was aiming for 5 billion yen at the box office before its release, we have to say that it is somewhat disappointing.

(A source from a movie company said, “That is why Kim Taku is taking on “Kyobo” with extraordinary passion.

If this drama series becomes a hit, there is a good chance that it will be made into a movie like “Hero,” which is also a Gekkan 9 series. He is aware of this, and it is thought that the reason he chose to go gray was to break with the “Kimu-Taku” image he has had up to this point. He even commented at the start of filming that he was determined to change the whole atmosphere of Fuji’s Gekkan 9. In fact, the tension during filming was so great that I think he is seriously considering breaking away from his previous image.

Kimura boasts the highest number of lead roles in Gekkan 9 in history. Will he be able to portray a new image of Kimura in this drama?

From the April 14, 2023 issue of FRIDAY