Kenji Uchida follows up "After School" with screwball comedy "Kagi Dorobou no Method"

by Chris MaGee

Director Kenji Uchida was just about to fall into "whatever happened to?" territory. Uchida had an international festival hit with his 2008 detective film "After School", but since then had fallen off the radar. Now word comes from Tokyograph that Uchida is in production on his follow-up to "After School".

Titled “Kagi Dorobou no Method", the film is a screwball comedy about two men switching identities. One is Sakurai, played by Masato Sakai (above center), a suicidal out of work actor; the other is Kondo, played by Teruyuki Kagawa (above left), a successful businessman. The two men cross paths in a public bath where Kondo slips, falls and loses his memory. Sakurai decides to not only swap possessions with Kondo in the bath locker room, but also to swap identities with him. While Sakurai gains money and success he also discovers that Kondo was in deep trouble with the yakuza. Meanwhile Kondo wakes up in the hospital and starts his life, or should we say Sakurai's life, fresh. This includes a romance with a woman named Kanae, played by Ryoko Hirosue (above right).

Uchida just started principal photography on “Kagi Dorobou no Method" this week. Shooting is set to wrap next month and the film is scheduled for a Japanese theatrical release in the fall of 2012.