By Mark Schilling
After a long box office drought, Toei finally has a major hit on its hands with Year One In the North, a period epic by Isao Yukisada -- the director who delivered the biggest domestic hit last year: Crying Out Love In the Centre of the World. Where the previous film, a romantic drama about tragic teenage love, finished with $81.6 million, Year One is expected to earn between $30 million and $40 million. Toei, however, has not had a film cross the $30 million line since Kinji Fukasaku's futuristic thriller Battle Royale accomplished that feat in 2001.
Based on a true story, the film depicts the struggles of pioneers on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido in the 1870s. One draw is Ken Watanabe as a pioneer leader, fresh his triumph in last year's biggest hit, The Last Samurai. Another is Sayuri Yoshinaga, playing his long-suffering wife in her 111th screen role. A major star since her teens, Yoshinaga is now well into the fourth decade of her career, but shows no signs of losing her appeal, especially for the forty-plus fans who are Year One's target audience.
Playing on 310 screens since its January 15 release, the film is settling in for a long, prosperous run. Its 168-minute running time limits screenings to four a day, but Toei Film Business Department manager Manabu Oshima says "we don't see the number of screenings as having a big impact on total box office -- the people who want to see the film are going to see it." Filmed over seven months on location in Hokkaido, Year One In the North cost about $15 million to make -- one-tenth the production budget of The Last Samurai. "I'm not sure about foreign sales, but we sure to recoup in Japan," said Oshima
