Another "letter story about Iwo Jima" on Fuji TV

Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima", starring Ken Watanabe, will be released in Japan on December 9, the day when the Pacific War started.  On the evening of the same day, Fuji TV will air a TV special drama, "Iwo Jima: Senjo no Yubin Haitatsu" (literally "Iwo Jima:  mailman in the battle field").

The planning of the drama started totally independently by producer Kazuki Narita of Fuji TV, when he read the non-fiction story about General Kuribayashi.  Narita says, "I was thinking of a drama featuring General Kuribayashi, but I gave it up once when I heard the same story would be made into a feature movie.  Then I thought, 'but who actually delivered the mails to the island', and restarted the project from that point of view."

After some research, they found out about a young pilot Masayoshi Nemoto, so the drama will depict Nemoto and his boss Toshinosuke Ichimaru.  Nemoto will be played by Atsushi Ito ("Umizaru") and Ichimaru by Tatsuya Fuji (probably known best for "In the Realm of Senses" internationally, but wow, he was in "Umizaru" too!!??  I don't remember...).  It sounds like the budget is relatively big for a TV drama.

I have talked many times on this blog about TV stations air related TV programs before movie releases for the movie promotion purposes, but it will be a reverse case - Fuji is trying to piggyback this drama on someone else's movie.  It will be an interesting case to see how people take this "voluntary collaboration."

Source:  Yomiuri Online