Five months of location shooting and 400 people in a brawl scene! Director Masaharu Take of “Ryu ga Gotoku” reveals the “secret of the prosperity of drama distribution.

Masaharu Take, director of numerous high-profile films such as “Hyakuen no Koi,” “Underdog,” “Usohyaku,” and the Netflix drama “Zenkaku Oyokan,” has created a new Amazon original drama “Ryu ga Gotoku: Beyond the Game,” which will be distributed exclusively on Prime Video worldwide from October 25, 2012. This is the first time that the film has been distributed on Prime Video.

The film is an original script inspired by the hit game series “Ryu ga Gotoku” by SEGA Corporation. Ryoma Takeuchi (31) plays the main character, Kazuma Kiryu, and Kento Kaku (35) plays his sibling Akira Nishikiyama, who grew up with Kiryu at the “Himawari” nursing home and later becomes his rival. The film depicts the lives of both Kiryu and Nishikiyama as they enter the world of the criminal underworld, intersecting the two time periods of 1995 and 2005.

This is the first drama based on a video game in his career. With less than a month to go before the distribution of the film, Director Takeshi talked about episodes related to the production, his thoughts on the film, and the challenges and hopes of the Japanese film industry in this age of “distribution service” prosperity.

Difficulties unique to a video game

–The drama version of “Ryu ga Gotoku: Beyond the Game” is based on the hit video game, so I think there are a lot of expectations and pressure from the fans of the original. Please tell us how you are feeling now that the distribution release of the film is just a month away.

Director Masaharu Take: I was working on the film until just this time last year. We spent 5 months filming on location and another 3 months preparing for the film. In total, it took about one year to shoot the film. Considering that we had been working on this film for about 3 years from the start of the project, I honestly felt “it was a long time” when it was just finished.

A 600-person onsite, which is unthinkable on TV

Director Takeshi: “Ryu ga Gotoku” is based on a video game that is popular worldwide. As the subtitle “Beyond the Game” suggests, we all shared the idea of making a work that goes beyond the original work. We all shared the idea of making a film that goes beyond the original work, as in the subtitle “Beyond the Game.” So we thought our job was to preserve the worldview of the original work while adding a degree of “realism” to the live-action film that was different from the game. I would be happy if the audience could watch the film in a funny way.

–Director Takeshi: The subtitle of the film was meant to be funny, wasn’t it?

Director Takeshi: Shinjuku Kamurocho is modeled on Kabukicho, and the scenario depicts two eras, 1995 and 2005. I came to Tokyo in the ’80s and felt firsthand the changes in the streets of Kabukicho, so I was happy to be able to recreate the memories of that time in a “realistic” image.

–I was happy to be able to recreate the memories of that time in a “realistic” image. Is it possible to achieve such a high quality because of the huge financial power of online distribution?

Director Takeshi: That’s right. The production cost is many times higher. As a creator, I think the appeal of online distribution is that you can put a lot of attention to detail into it. For example, in this case, there is a scene where about 300 to 400 yakuza fight in a brawl. Including the actors and staff, there are 600 people in the scene. The fact that we were able to do this in live-action made for a very powerful image. Once again, I realized how much money went into the production of this film.

Japanese films are usually shot in about two months, but this time we were able to spend more than a year filming. On the other hand, I was surprised at the rapid turnover of the staff. It was very common to hear things like, “Hey, who’s that guy again? (laughs).

In the paid version of “FRIDAY GOLD,” he goes into more detail about the story behind the drama “Ryu ga Gotoku: Beyond the Game,” his beliefs in the production process, and his sense of crisis in the Japanese film industry in the age of the flourishing distribution services.