A Love Story with Tsuyoshi Kusanagi? Exploring the Role of Kunimura Jun in Onmyoji 0 and Go-Ban Kiri

Kento Yamazaki starring and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi starring…in important roles in two major productions

This spring, Jun Kunimura appears in important roles in two major films: “Onmyoji 0” starring Kento Yamazaki and directed by Tsugumako Sato, and “Goban Zanri” starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and directed by Kazuya Shiraishi. He is a cosmopolitan actor who has played a wide range of roles, from a blasé old man to a coquettish yakuza, from a doctor to an ordinary father, but in fact, he is surprisingly a “natural idiot”. We asked him to talk about his choice of films, co-stars, and plays.

–You played a role in “Onmyoji 0” and “Goban Zanri,” both of which are completely different genres, in which you watch over, guide, and sometimes confront the main character. What were the deciding factors for you to play these roles?

Jun Kunimura (Kunimura): Basically, when I take on any kind of work, I always base it on the script, and I pay the most attention to what kind of world and what kind of sensibilities are involved.

In that sense, both works are very interesting, but there are other elements as well. For example, in the case of “Onmyoji 0,” this is the second time I have worked with director Tsugumako Sato, following “K-20: Kaijin Nijumenso Den” (’08), which I did with Takeshi Kaneshiro.

Tsugumako and I are on the same wavelength, and she loves and knows a lot about the world of yin-yang and witchcraft, so I thought it would be interesting to work with someone like that. I was also interested in the idea of playing the young Seimei Abe, the character that leads up to the world of Baku Yumemakura’s novels.

On the other hand, the book “Goban Zanri” is also very interesting, and I originally loved “Bakumatsu Taiyouden” directed by Yuzo Kawashima, which is similarly based on rakugo and combines various episodes into one. It is a work with an interesting worldview that combines various Rakugo-based episodes into one. That’s why I really wanted to do it.

My impression of Kento Yamazaki is that he is “a little bit out of this world.”

–What was your impression of Kento Yamazaki, who played Seimei in “Onmyoji 0”?

Kunimura: We had played father and son together several times before, so I knew how we felt about each other and the distance between us as actors, so it was like we were collaborating together, bumping off each other’s characters on the set without having to think about it again.

–What do you find attractive about Mr. Yamazaki?

Kunimura: Both the character Seimei and himself have a slightly out-of-this-world feel to them. He does a lot of comic-based work, and it suits him, doesn’t it?　I don’t know many actors who can create that kind of presence, other than him. He can do a lot of things, but I think he has a good balance between a bit of frivolous fun and a sense of reality.

–He is a natural in the sense that he can do a lot of things, but I think he has a good balance of being a bit frivolous and realistic.

Kunimura (laughs). He doesn’t try to hide his true self, and he doesn’t try to put on airs at all. I myself prefer people like that.