Takuya Kimura’s Foreign Drama Wins a Series of Prestigious German and French Awards

The media reported that the foreign drama “THE SWARM,” starring actor Takuya Kimura (50) and available in Japan on the video distribution service Hulu, has won a string of prestigious awards in Germany and France.

 

The film is directed by Frank Dorger, producer of the U.S. drama series “Game of Thrones,” which was also a big hit in Japan. It is a big project that Hulu has teamed up with major broadcasters in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and other European countries. Based on the international best-selling novel of the same title, the film is a science fiction suspense about mankind’s battle against intelligent creatures hiding in the deep sea. All dialogue is in English, and Kimura, in his first participation in a foreign-produced drama, plays the role of Ait Mifune, the founder of the Mifune Foundation, who leads a group of scientists to confront the human crisis.

According to reports, the film won “Best Miniseries” at the German Television Awards, the pinnacle awards in German domestic television, the German version of the Emmy Awards. In addition, the “Content Innovation Awards” hosted by Television Business International, an international television industry magazine, which was held in conjunction with MIPCOM CANNES 2023, one of the world’s largest international video content trade fairs in France, awarded the “Best New Scriptbook” award. The award was presented to the “Best New Scripted Series” at the “Content Innovation Awards” hosted by Television Business International, an international television industry magazine. The awards are prestigious awards that honor global television programming.

However, despite the international recognition, Kimura has not commented on the award. In fact, he has not actively promoted the film in the media, which is understandable if you look at the film.

 

“Kimura’s role is that of a key person. The drama has eight episodes, but Mr. Kimura’s appearance started in the third episode and lasted about one and a half minutes. He had only one line in Japanese in episode 4, and did not appear in episode 5. Episodes 6 and 7 had English dialogue, but appearances were still brief. In the final episode, he had multiple scenes and lines, but even so, his subordinate actor, Takehiro Hira spent more time and had more lines than him in the entire story. It was difficult to say that he “contributed” to the winning of a major award.”

Compared to the popularity of the films in which he has appeared, Kimura’s appearances in this movie seem to be rather small, but some people say that the composition of the film is like a déjà vu that they have seen somewhere before.

 

“Kimura’s international debut was the 2004 Hong Kong film “2046,” directed by Asian master director Wong Kar-wai. Tony Leung (61) played the main character in the real world, and Mr. Kimura played the main character in the play within a play, with Asian stars such as Faye Wong (54) and Zhang Ziyi (44) playing supporting roles.”

“The film was also entered in the Competition section at the 57th Cannes International Film Festival that year. The Japanese press flocked to the festival and reported the “world debut” of Mr. Kimura, a member of SMAP and a national star at the time, strutting proudly on the red carpet.”

“However, the press was disappointed to learn that Mr. Kimura appeared in only seven minutes of the 129-minute film. In addition, Yuya Yagira, 33, an unknown child actor at the age of 14 who starred in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Nobody Knows,” won the Best Actor Award in the Competition section, becoming the youngest Japanese actor ever to win the award and the first Japanese to do so. The film was the youngest in history and the first Japanese actor to win an award in the Competition section.”

 

The incident at Cannes is probably etched in Kimura’s “black history”. Perhaps it is because of this bitterness that Kimura did not make any particular comment this time.

 

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