Dir. Yukiko Mishima for Red (2020)

Q: Satoshi Tsumabuki, who played Kurata was very good.

Mishima (M): Satoshi Tsumabuki was wonderful. There is a scene where he talks about what he wants to see from the window of his ideal house in the car. You could hear the sound of waves as if horizon came to his eyes (that's why recording director and sound effect director added the wave sound effects). What really conveyed was big, and I felt emotional. I also needed Tsumabuki to take Kaho's unprecedented facial expressions. It was very important for this movie to have Tsumabuki become a kind of accomplice. Eg, the expression of Toko when she saw Kurata who picked him up by car-at the final act. Kurata was in a state where we couldn't tell if he was alive or not, considering his condition. Perhaps he has already died and has come to see Toko as a ghost. I wanted to capture the surprised expression of Toko when she saw such Kurata, so I told Tsumabuki, "Why don't you just feel like you're alive or dead? Please ..."

Q: It's a great direction (laughs).

M: (lol). But then, with Tsumabuki, I really felt that only his soul was there. As a result, I think that Kaho created an act that was kind of like confirming, "Is this a reality?" That's why I thought that Tsumabuki was like a "comrade" who thought about the whole work together. It was him who understood what I wanted to do more than anyone else and Kaho's expression was brought out through Tsumabuki. Thanks to that, during the performance, I forgot even the existence of the body, and I was able to witness the moment when only emotions were flowing between the two. I was happy to be able to shoot it.

Q: Especially for those who read the original novel, the ending is different.

M: I feel that the novel and the movie are different things. I think that adapting a novel into a movie is not tracing the novel as it is. "Red" is a complete art piece at the stage of the novel. I don't think it makes much sense to make it into a movie as it is. It should be how we read the novel and make a conversion of the essence we want to react to, where we want to reduce, where we want to throw away, where we want to see it from? I think that is important. I don't think it makes much sense to make it into a movie as it is. It should be how we read the novel and make a conversion of the essence we want to react to, where we want to reduce, where we want to throw away, where we want to see it from? I think that is important. Through the romance between man and woman, I want to ask what about you? What are you really looking for? It was a movie that I shot with the intention of telling the story of grasping something like a guideline for my own life.