Japanese star’s dreams finally come true
OSCAR-WINNING composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has spent a career steeped in high drama but last Saturday, the Japanese star revealed he had now realized a childhood dream by working for the first time in animation.
“I grew up watching Astro Boy,” said Sakamoto, referring to the cartoon crime fighter. “So I have a great respect for this world.”
The 66-year-old Sakamoto first won widespread acclaim for his seminal work on the score for the gritty David Bowie-starring drama “Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence” (1983) before he won an Oscar for the Bernardo Bertolucci-directed period epic “The Last Emperor” in 1987.
Sakamoto has arrived at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival to promote Japanese animation ace Kobun Shizuno’s fantastical “My Tyrano: Together, Forever.”
“My Tyrano” is lifted from the pages of Japanese picture-book author Miyanishi Tatsuya’s successful Tyrannosaurus series, and is set around an unlikely friendship that forms between two beasts.
Sakamoto picked up the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award at the festival’s opening for his work on movie soundtracks.
He said he was attracted to the themes of tolerance and friendship in “My Tyrano,” and hoped Asian politics would follow a similar route.
The composer said he thought it was up to individuals to take away from the film what they will — but that he hoped they might see that its message was a positive one.
“The fact that this was a co-production I thought was quite meaningful,” said Sakamoto.
“Getting people together from different places is an interesting process and together the filmmakers showed great passion. But I think it is up to people themselves to find messages. When I work I just act and don’t waste much time wondering what other people think about the things that I believe in.”
The trip to Busan comes as Sakamoto continues to emerge from a hiatus from public appearances following a battle with throat cancer that was first diagnosed in 2014. The disease is now in remission.
“I have been asked to come to Busan many times before,” said Sakamoto. “But the timing was not right until now. It is great to be here and to see people from all over Asia coming together to enjoy our cinema.”
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