Toma's Room

On February 9th, Takimoto Tomoyuki’s latest film ‘Nou Otoko‘ celebrated its premiere. Both the director as well as the cast attended the opening day stage greeting in Tokyo.

The cast of ‘Nou Otoko’ is led by actor Ikuta Toma who plays a mysterious man who commits countless murders in the name of justice. He is being called ‘brain man’ (nou otoko) by other people, because he is very intelligent and has an outstanding memory. This man also doesn’t seem to be capable of any kind of emotions as he commits all of his murders without the slightest expressions.

Ikuta is supported by a great group of actors including Nikaido Fumi, Matsuyuki Yasuko, Eguchi Yosuke and Ohta Rina, who all attended the stage greeting as well.

The most surprising and shocking episode from the process of making the film was revealed by young actress Nikaido. She mentioned that she actually fainted in the middle of filming a certain scene.

Nikaido portrays a serial bomber in the film and the said incident happened after the protagonist finally managed to get a hold of the girl. Ikuta was supposed to act like he was strangling her, when she suddenly lost all of her strength. He commented, “The director told me to do it a little stronger, so I put more strength into my grip, but Fumi-chan suddenly fainted and dropped to the floor… Doing something like that to a 17 (now 18) year-old girl caused quite a trauma for me.”

The young actress commented on the filming in her typical blunt and merciless fashion, “I just wanted them all to drop dead.” Director Takimoto also asked her to lose a lot of weight for her role, which didn’t exactly make her become his biggest fan on the set. She spoke up, “I’m still in my growth period, so it’s hard to lose any weight! ‘Please let this filming be over soon,’ I thought. I wasn’t even allowed to eat rice let alone any sorts of sweets.”

Takimoto admitted that he must have been pretty harsh on her and joked, “I was probably on the top of her list of the people she wanted to die. I could see it in her eyes, ‘I’m gonna kill you’.”

Even Eguchi agreed with Nikaido on the harsh filming conditions, but he didn’t express it as bluntly as the young actress. He commented, “I had a hand-to-hand fighting scene with Ikuta and it took us 27 hours to complete this scene. It felt like I was going to collapse in the middle of filming as well.”

Ikuta tried to conclude the greeting in a more appealing fashion and expressed, “It probably doesn’t sound right coming from my own mouth, but this really turned out to be a very interesting film. I think this is the proof that films like this can be made in Japan after all. Japanese culture is a wonderful thing and this film makes you realize it once more. I’m confident (of its quality).”

‘Nou Otoko’ has opened in cinemas nationwide and is distributed by Toho.

I just saw this early this morning (my first movie in the snake year) because I can never pass up a movie that has Matsuyuki Yasuko in it and although the movie title is 'brain man', it is actually a no-brainer action film - action including multiple murders which were to me very enjoyable and humorous to watch.

However there were two other actresses who were terribly irritating in this fun movie but thankfully they didn't have a lot of screen time mainly becos they were untimely terminated, Stonecold killers made-in-japan are nothing that new but Man! it was awesomely fun to watch this movie where the victims are all panicking and screaming and over-acting and more screaming before their misery were ended ... in multiple choices.

Toma-san actually ISN"T all that expressionless because half the time, he seems about to burst into laughter - it's just that he doesn't talk a lot before, during and after he terminates someone - his expression is typically what male models wear when they're walking down the runway in their togs. Unsmiling and inert.

Undoubtedly Toma-san fangirls would love those delicious bare-bodied shots, complete with authentic burn scars but mainly his muscles and ridges and curves.

He's just the kind of serial murderer who takes his job VERY VERY seriously and thanks to the script, he never fails to give more & more work to the inept Japanese police detectives (who by default also like to shout and scream) who become angry not because the killings are multiplying but because they don't understand why he kills. And kills some more.

Halfway in the movie, I was already hoping they make a sequel to this killing fest but unfortunately it's unlikely.