Interview Part 2 >>

A work that “makes peace with past regrets”

Most of the roles he played were “outlaws” such as delinquents, yakuza, and assassins. Hitoshi Ozawa is an actor with many legends, including killing over 2,000 people in the movie and breaking his bones about 50 times during filming.

He will turn 60 in 2022, and the movie he stars in is “BAD CITY” (released nationwide on January 20th) as a “60th anniversary movie.” Ozawa, who has been producing and directing under the name “OZAWA” for some time, also serves as executive producer and scriptwriter for this work.

When asked about the production process, the story goes back to 1995, when he produced the first film he starred in, “SCORE” (directed by Atsushi Muroga).

“At that time, “Reservoir Dogs” (1992), which[Quentin]Tarantino made for 50 million yen, was a hit, and Muroga said to me, “Let’s do it too…5 million yen.” (laughs)

So I made “The Wild Beat: Requiem for Betrayal” (1994/original video work). When I asked (movie producer) Kazuyoshi Okuyama to take a look at it to get some recommendation comments, he said, “You guys, I’ll give you 30 million yen, so just shoot whatever you like,” and the movie I shot was “SCORE.” .

It received good reviews from critics and won awards, but Mr. Okuyama spent 200 million yen on publicity for the film, and he didn’t even make back half of the money. That’s something I’ve always regretted. This time, when I saw the perfect number of 60 for my 60th birthday, I thought now would be the time to end it.”

I wanted it to be an action movie with hand-to-hand combat, and I came up with a story about a detective with a reason for fighting against great evil in a crime city where the Yakuza and the Korean Mafia are in the mix. The tool for script writing is the computer. However, Ozawa is far from a blind touch. “I only use one finger, so it takes time,” Ozawa says with a laugh.

The director is Kensuke Sonomura, who is known as an action director such as “Manhunt” (2018, directed by John Woo). The cast includes Lily Franky, who said, “I’ve always wanted to work with her,” as well as Rino Katase, Masaya Kato, and Mitsu Dan.

The executive producer is Yusuke Suzuki of Rights Cube, who made the chivalry series “Unification of Japan” planned by Ozawa a success.

“I think the biggest battle was from Suzuki to the time when he gave the go-ahead for filming. In addition to hand-to-hand combat and gunfights, the first script included a frightening car chase. Suzuki kept saying, “That’s unreasonable!” Then, I was like, “Well, why don’t we just cut the car chase? But we can’t cut this part.”

As a producer, if you don’t keep an eye on things, the project will fail. Even if it’s unreasonable, I make a good story and go out on the battlefield (photographing). That’s the kind of battle it is.”