Part 2 - 14

It was a hot and humid day – Lee Soo Hyun is riding on his bicycle all over Tokyo, and meets Yuri and Kazama who are performing on the streets. This is an important scene.

One hundred extras, five bands and units (including dancers) assemble at the east exit of Ikebukuro Station. We were to shoot an action scene which would also include Hee and Yabuki playing yakuzas (Japanese mobsters). The action advisor who worked with me in “A Delinquent’s Dream” added a good touch to this scene.
Lee Tae Sung is a great athlete as expected. He is a natural when it comes to action scenes.

There, we encountered a sudden shower!
But when we looked up at the sky above us, we were able to see a slit in the clouds. We decided to take our chances, and continued shooting… after a while, the rain stopped completely, and the sun shone beautifully upon us. The weather forecast is absolutely unreliable in a situation like this. We always keep our fingers crossed.

We finished taking all the scenes, and moved on to Nippori.
Because we took longer than scheduled on the afternoon scene, we changed our plan. Instead of taking the sun down, we decided to do the night scene.

This was going to take place at Lee Soo Hyun’s apartment by the railway tracks.
It was a scene with Lee Tae Sung and Kaneko-san, and had a long dialogue in Japanese. It had one of the most Japanese lines among the scenes with Lee Tae Sung.
If his Japanese goes well, it was a scene I wanted to shoot in one long cut. We tested it… great! He is memorizing the lines just by hearing, but you cannot tell the difference. What wonderful talent!

He responds well to the subtle nuances, too.
After a few rehearsals, we were able to shoot the scene in one cut as planned.
During the ride on the way back, Lee Tae Sung expressed his excitement in receiving tremendous energy from the dialogue he had with Kaneko.

Even when the other staffs were dozing off, he continued to talk passionately about his impressions.

(Originally posted in Japanese on July 12, 2006)