When Narita Ryo, the lead actor in Katayama Shinzo’s wild and woolly fantasy, Lust in the Rain, took the stage following its World Premiere screening on October 30 in the Competition section of the 37th Tokyo International Film Festival, he commiserated with the audience. “Thanks for coming to see this film so early in the morning,” he said. “It might not be a morning film, actually, since you all look so tired.”
 
Which is putting it mildly. Katayama has adapted Tsuge Yoshiharu’s period manga, which mashes together Showa era comedy/melodrama, extremely racy comic books, bloody World War II battle vignettes, and an overarching love story that many viewers will likely take with a grain of salt, though not Narita, who insisted that, in the end, the movie really is about true love.
 
Narita plays the budding manga artist Yoshio, who has a deep crush on Fukuko (Nakamura Eriko), a woman who is reintroduced throughout the movie in different guises and occupations, though all exude a bubbly attitude toward life and sex that Yoshio fantasizes about almost nightly. Katayama exaggerates this element and refuses to stick to a consistent narrative arc, opting instead for a Vonnegut-like series of increasingly bizarre episodes that are meant to explain Yoshio’s infatuation.
 
Moderator Yasuda Yuko tried to sum it up by saying, “Well, it’s a baffling film, but in a way it’s sometimes interesting to watch such a baffling film — especially some of those shocking scenes — so early in the morning.” When she characterized the theme as being “loss,” Narita reiterated that it was really about “love.” (The director was unable to attend the event, and thus couldn’t clarify the issue.)
 
Nakamura concurred with Yasuda to a certain extent, saying that she had wanted to work with Katayama ever since she saw his 2018 film Siblings of the Cape, but nevertheless found the script difficult to understand. “But I could see the uniqueness of Tsuge’s vision, so I knew it would be an interesting film to work on. And once Narita and [supporting actor] Morita Go were attached, I just jumped right in.”
 
Narita commented, “As you can see, if you’re going to work with Katayama you have to be all in, and I definitely wanted to be in that kind of film.”
 
The movie is a co-production between Japan and Taiwan, where much of the movie was shot, since there are still hamlets that retain the early Showa architecture from the island’s time as a colony of Japan. Katayama, in fact, tried to incorporate other Taiwan locations for some of the fantasy sequences, including an extended scene that takes place at a genuine palace. In that scene, the mistress of the palace is played by Taiwanese actor Li Xing, who was also on hand for the Q&A. “I saw Siblings of the Cape when it was released in Taiwan, and Katayama came to promote it. I participated in a talk session for that event, and I guess you can call it kismet, because when I heard he was coming to Taiwan to make a movie, I contacted him to see if I could be in it and he said ‘yes.’”
 
Since Katayama’s directing style is apparently unusual, Yasuda asked for examples from the cast. Narita, whose character does a lot of running in the film, was shown exactly how to move his body. “He said don’t bend my elbows.” Nakamura recalled that Katayama specifically asked her for a more theatrical performance as opposed to a realistic one, presumably because she is, for much of the film, not a real person but a figment of Yoshio’s imagination. Katayama’s request for Li was particularly strange: “He kept telling me to blink more slowly. No director has ever asked me to do that before. But it’s obvious he knew exactly what he wanted from his actors.”
 
Since the characters were so vividly rendered, one audience member asked if there were any common traits they shared with the actors who played them. Narita said he thinks he’s also timid and imagines an ideal world, just as Yoshio does, “but I’m not a slacker like Yoshio, though sometimes I wish I were.” Nakamura had trouble answering the question because “we really don’t know what Fukuko will do from one moment to the next, though, like her, I often rely on my instincts.” When Yasuda commented that she loved the scene where Fukuko attacked an unfaithful lover with a sharp object in a frenzy of anger, Nakamura said, “I would have done the same thing.”
 
Regarding location shooting in Taiwan with a Taiwanese crew, everybody said that things went smoothly, though Nakamura apparently had issues with the tropical weather, which could be quite hot during the day and quite cold at night. Li said she felt sorry for the Japanese cast and crew because they weren’t used to such drastic temperature changes, in particular Nakamura. “There was one night shoot that extended to 3 in the morning,” she said. “And because Nakamura’s character often didn’t wear much clothing, I wondered if she was going to survive.”
 
Probably the most unusual question came from an audience member wanting to know which characters in the movie the actors would want to play if they hadn’t played the characters assigned to them. Nakamura chose the mysterious publisher Mr. X, while Li said she wouldn’t have minded playing Fukuko. Narita just shook his head and said, “I did enough with Yoshio, so I think I’m done. It was just too much.”
 
Q&A Session: Competition
Lust in the Rain
Guests: Narita Ryo (Actor), Nakamura Eriko (Actor), Li Xing (Actor)