"20th Century Boys" director Yukihiko Tsutsumi set to rock out with "Beck"

by Chris MaGee

Now that the first two chapters of the epic "20th Century Boys" screen adaptation are touring around the film festival circuit and the third film is in the can and awaiting release its director, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, is moving onto a new project... and guess what? It's another manga adaptation, but this time not on such a grand scale.

Far from Naoki Urasawa's multi-generational, multiple timeline, conspiracy/ science fiction adventure Harold Sakuishi's long-running manga "Beck" is simply about five young guys who want nothing more than to play in a rock band. The manga, that ran in Kodansha's Monthly Shōnen Magazine from 2000 to 2008, won over millions of fans with its story of guitarist Yukio "Koyuki" Tanaka and his fictional band Beck as its members struggle on the road to stardom. Tsutsumi's film will be playing with the source material a bit by making Beck's lead singer Ryusuke Minami the main character. Portraying Minami will be 25-year-old Hiro Mizushima, who's already gotten a taste for musical roles by starring in Ryuichi Honda's "GS Wonderland", but that doesn't mean that he's actually a musician. The producers of "Beck" are trying to change that though by having him, and his co-stars Takeru Sato, Kenta Kiritani, Osamu Mukai, and Aoi Nakamura, attend intensive music lessons so that they'll be able to actually play their instruments in the film.

Now, the big question I have is that with films like "G.S. Wonderland", "Linda, Linda, Linda", "Punch the Blue Sky" and "Swing Girls" do we really need to have another "Let's form a band!" movie? I guess we'll have to wait until the fall of next year when "Beck" is scheduled to hit Japanese theatres. Thanks to Tokyograph for the details on this.