At the 44th Hochi Movie Awards held on 18 December in Tokyo, Yamazaki Kento presented flowers to Sato Shinsuke who won Best Director for the movie ‘Kingdom’.
Kento’s speech: “Director, congratulations! ‘Kingdom’ is a very important project to me. The filming was harsh but you took great care of all departments and the feelings of the cast. You’re really amazing. You’re a director I love. I’d feel blessed if I can continue to work with you on projects that bring delight to the world. Congratulations once again!”
Director Sato’s speech: “I was a child who imagined my own movies. I wanted to film them so I became a movie director. ‘Kingdom’ is exactly such a movie. It happened that the main character is also called ‘Shin’ (T/N: the ‘Shin’ in ‘Shinsuke’), so I challenged this movie as though it’s a story about myself, and created this movie while thinking that Yamazaki Kento is me! I feel especially attached to this project… I would like to share this with the staff and cast who were involved in the production…”
“This is something personal, but I’m really happy to be able to receive this award at the end of this year. Several months ago, my wife passed away. She had been looking forward to this movie and to my achievements. Even though this is late, I’d like to share this with my wife and our children…”, he said, choking up…
In other news, seems like filming for ‘Alice in Borderland’ has wrapped up on the 18th as well. Perhaps they went to the awards ceremony together from the filming location…