Downloaded from YTS.MX
Hanging Garden was released in 2005.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
After I make a film, I never rewatch it.
So it's been I7 years since I've seen this.
So I'm quite nervous.
I had always wanted to make a family themed film.
And I was able to make one after coming across the novel 'Hanging Garden'.
The first cut is...
this elaborate lampshade in the kitchen.
Adorned with a painting of Babylon.
Here...
we're moving the lampshade from above.
While the camera is filming it spin then starts moving away.
The Hanging Gardens are
a place in the city of Babylon which were said to be made by Queen Semiramis.
And the painting of them here was an idea which came from the novel.
As the camera moves away you can see that it's just a lampshade.
And...
this film was, how do I say,
the theme of the film was a 'circle,'
and everyone involved was aware of that.
Here's Kyoko Koizumi
She was around 40 then.
Kyoko Koizumi, a former pop idol
playing a normal housewife sounds a bit off.
When I asked her agency about it I was told off actually.
But was something she wanted.
Something she wanted to try.
So,
I offered her the role and she accepted with delight.
Though actually, before this Koizumi and I had spoken about working together.
She asked me to come for a drink,
and coincidentally I had the 'Hanging Garden' novel with me.
Actually I hadn't read it yet, but I asked her if she was interested in it
so gave it to her to take home and read, I think I did.
Kyoko Koizumi was married, but got divorced just before we started filming.
So maybe that had something to do with her appearing.
Actually I got divorced when finishing it. So maybe it's that sort of film.
The person speaking now is Itsuji Itao, who is a comedian.
Someone like Itsuji Itao playing the husband of Kyoko Koizumi...
...is quite amusing. I think it was quite unique casting.
The boy in the back...
in the film Pornostar, there was a character called 5 Star Pussycat
a crazy character played by Leona Hirota. He is her son.
After this film he said he was going to quit University to become an actor
but I don't know if that actually happened.
Sitting opposite to him is Anne Suzuki.
She's very famous and has been acting since she was a child.
She appeared in my film 9 Souls when she was I5.
So for this film Anne must have been around 17.
She must be in her 30s by now.
In Japanese households it's the job of the father to take out the trash.
9 and 6, I chose those numbers for symmetric balance.
Filming took place in the outskirts of Tokyo in a place called 'New Town.'
A sort of town which had government funded housing projects and apartments.
I searched all over for it.
When I was looking for a perfect place to represent the film
I decided on this apartment which I found during location scouting.
We went and knocked on the door of it and spoke to the tenants,
then asked them to rent it to us and we were able to decide on it.
This is that 'New Town.'
There were a lot of problems with that 'New Town.'
Some problems with its development.
But that story doesn't have any relation to this film.
A great shot with dandelions.
The person speaking to Anne Suzuki here is Ryo Katsuji.
A long time after this, we worked again together on Crows Explode.
This balcony was a set made in a studio.
The voice you can hear on the TV is Seiji Chihara, who is the brother of
Koji Chihara, the lead actor of Pornostar.
Just his voice.
A TV show we made to use in the film.
Kyoko Koizumi was still young then.
Right now she's working as a film producer
and also as a theater play producer. On the other side of the camera.
So a little closer to that side.
The image of seeing the blue sky through a bug-eaten hole in a leaf.
In my house I have a sakura tree with leaves full of holes from insects.
I used to look at the sky through those holes.
And I thought that image would look great in a film.
This was done by CGI,
but I was able to do it.
The film as a whole deals with people's deep anxieties.
So to express that I wanted the camera to move a lot like this.
Things like that
are not too often used in films.
The cinematographer was Junichi Fujisawa, who worked on many Seijun Suzuki films.
He had a hard time with this.
This is a 'New Town' in Chiba.
This film's music was by Kazuhide Yamaji.
He composed it specially for the film.
He did the music for many of my films including Pornostar and 9 Souls.
The piano was done by Yumiko Ohno from the band Buffalo Daughter.
I believe. Maybe it was Yamaji.
Yamaji composed the music, a music engineer named ZAK mixed it.
We worked together to properly mix everything into the music you hear.
The camera's really moving. On purpose, obviously.
Putting that Ferris wheel in the shot was very hard.
Then you see it here.
We were able to film this Ferris wheel which is actually here.
Families often ride them, don't they?
I often think of families when thinking of Ferris wheels.
So I included it.
Bam and fly away.
This zoom shot was done with the help of work done after at the studio.
You can't zoom this far normally, so we used 2 lenses and blended two shots.
Once zoomed back the camera was moved in a circle.
It continues to spin around.
Now the title appears.
It's hard to do commentaries on my own work.
Well, I had a choice of not doing it.
The person who designed the title also did the titles for all my older films.
Osamu Ohashi was his name. He did all my films before.
Recently Danko Iida from Seppuku Pistols has been doing them by hand.
They're both so young.
Anne Suzuki was 17 and Ryo Katsuji was around the same age too.
Ryo Katsuji was married to AKB 48's Atsuko Maeda, but got divorced recently.
There are lots of divorces here.
At this time he was new and not such an adept actor,
but now he's in loads of films as a great supporting actor.
Anne Suzuki...
As a child actress she even appeared in a Hollywood film
as well.
She was...
a great actress already back then.
And a nice person.
The music playing in the background
is a song made by Kazuhide Yamaji
which was arranged to sound like something that plays in theme park.
It's Michiyo Okusu.
Hanging Garden was the first time we worked together.
A legendary actress, from films like Zatoichi.
She also appeared in some films of Seijun Suzuki
and Yasuzo Masumura.
A top actress.
Playing Kyoko Koizumi's mother
was perfect casting, I thought.
She's been kind to me even since before I debuted.
This was the first time we could work together and I was so happy about it.
She also appeared in my film I'm Flash after this.
Smoking in a hospital...
you couldn't even imagine such a thing nowadays.
But during that time there were people like that.
This is a line I added at the time.
Soba restaurant.
Dattan Soba Restaurant.
After 17 years, watching my film again really makes me think about a lot.
This is Asami Imajuku.
She's a model,
who had one scene in 9 Souls as Kiyohiko Shibukawa's girlfriend.
In the fashion scene at that time she really stood out.
She was a famous model.
After she appeared in my films she went on to appear in a few films I believe.
She had a starring role in one.
She's a very nice person.
And she's very...
stylish.
Kyoko is quite cute here and still young.
If she heard me saying that she'd get mad, but I don't think she'll listen to this.
So I said it.
He's a comedian from the Yoshimoto agency.
I hang around with comedians.
I used to hang around a lot with them
and I found him at some point. Though I don't know where he is now.
This is Shinsuke Suzuki. He was in Pornostar and 9 Souls.
He was also in The Miracle of Crybaby Shottan.
He's quite a unique actor.
It's the Wild Monkeys hotel.
This is actually...
a set. Something we worked hard to make.
But there's a real love hotel around there called Monkeys
A famous love hotel around there.
Room number
609, again.
The same number as their apartment.
On purpose.
Very psychedelic wallpaper.
We designed this wallpaper.
In fact, we made a variety of new designs for wallpaper
This is all a set.
We built this set at Nikkatsu's studios and filmed there.
In Japan they have these places called love hotels.
This is quite an old fashioned type of one though.
As it has a spinning bed and mirrors.
I think foreigners who come to Japan would have fun there. They're cheap too.
Each room has different themes too.
I forgot the film had a sex scene.
The bed's spinning.
I've never been to a love hotel which has a spinning bed.
But that's another story.
Anne Suzuki...
with the mirror in shot it means we shot this from below.
Filming up at the mirror and zooming in.
The cinematographer and I spoke a lot about each shot.
Talking about shooting one way or another.
This teddy bear...
was quite popular back then. I think it's mentioned in the book too.
Innocent, but also...
a bit strange.
Quite strange.
Not so cute. Is what I felt.
Amazing duvet cover and the pictures behind.
Oh yeah, the inside of this drawer, too.
the art department worked hard to make various designs.
This song is 'Dogs and Cats' by Kazuyoshi Nakamura.
I loved this song.
So I asked permission to use it and it was granted.
This is Hiromi Nagasaku.
After this film, she also appeared in
another film adapted from a Mitsuyo Kakuta novel in which she played the lead role.
Itsuji Itao.
The first time we worked together was on 9 Souls.
Since I was in high school...
he was known as a famous comedian and I was a big fan of his.
After 9 Souls he also appeared in The Blood of Rebirth, Hanging Garden
and many other films of mine.
3 years ago he directed a film called Hibana (Spark)
and I was asked to write the script for that.
Because it's Itsuji Itao...
is why I wrote it.
He directed a few films as well.
Recently his work acting in films has become more than his comedian work.
So he shifted his lifestyle and work to be more on film sets.
Does he still appear on TV?
I don't really watch TV so I'm not sure.
The atmosphere is starting to boil over.
We shot this scene at a real Thai restaurant in Roppongi.
There are these great sculptures
in there.
That's why I chose it.
The nipple song.
A lot of people asked me if I had sung it, but it wasn't me.
But it was sung by someone with the same surname as me, Michinori Toyoda.
A friend of mine.
A song called 'Love Hotel in the Rain.'
This is actually Itsuji Itao performing alone.
That's a comedian for you.
In the next room, 608 of the love hotel your father is having sex.
Those things sometimes happen, maybe?
We kept on filming under the evening sunlight.
Oh, this convenience store.
When we filmed here, the local Yakuza turned up.
They tried to make us pay.
So we stopped filming...
Though at that time Kyoko Koizumi was quite strong-willed.
She said to them 'Huh?You got a problem?'
We got rid of them in the end and finished filming.
Being told to pay while trying to shoot a film...
probably only happened that one time during my whole career making movies.
Though they were pretty simple-minded Yakuza.
Even in this 'New Town''...
there are Yakuza. But paying them off was cheap, just around $400 or so.
Though maybe I've said too much.
We paid them and they left.
The family in
Yuzo Kawashima's film The Graceful Brute.
Is what I tried to give a similar feeling of.
This sort of hard to see shot looking through these bars
is something I wanted to try.
This was shot through the gap in the side part of the apartments.
Here's that song again, 'Love Hotel in the Rain.'
This is his way of not showing where he actually lives.
It might be in subtitles, but 'Viagra' is written on the sign there.
How do you explain Viagra?
A drug to give you a hard on.
A bit of symbolism.
She's returned.
Hanging Garden was invited to play at various international film festivals
and this scene always got a big reaction.
In various places.
In Greece the audience went wild.
During this time.... Maybe it would be different now
but having Itsuji Itao and Kyoko Koizumi
not really a love scene, but being in bed together,
was quite a shocking scene for Japanese audiences.
While filming this scene Kyoko kept on laughing out loud
the more and more Itsuji Itao started to get closer to her.
I told Itsuji Itao to push his cock against her body
but Kyoko Koizumi burst out laughing.
So I told him to hold her leg.
There were just loads of mistakes from Kyoko Koizumi,
so she asked if she could take a break.
But she's skillful isn't she, the way she bats him away.
This is how it's done. Though I'm no expert.
He's very sprightly.
The setting of a husband who is always raring to go.
The person who designed the CGI
was So Hashimoto from the art department.
Nowadays he's quite famous for his work
in art direction over many films in japan.
At this time he was just an assistant.
He worked on both my films Crows Explode and The Miracle of Cry Baby Shottan.
Oh, it's Sonim.
Sonim was born in the Kansai area
and was in a pop idol group.
But she hadn't really appeared in many films before.
Though she can act well.
After this...
she focused her work on becoming an actress who appears in musicals.
For example, starring in musical films and singing in them.
So that's the path she ended up on.
Anne Suzuki was such a big name that scenes with her eating snacks...
...were complicated to film.
As she was appearing in lots of snack commercials sponsored by certain brands.
But I made her eat something which wasn't easy to specify the brand.
I was told she could only eat snacks from the companies she was promoting.
But it's not like...
we were getting money from those companies.
The two from the soba restaurant. Asami Imajuku and... what was his name?
He was working as a TV personality, but I haven't seen him anywhere lately.
Or maybe it's just that I'm not looking.
It's an old-style phone, but the way he twirls it...
is something we did in a commercial before.
So we did it again.
Kyoko Koizumi really has a perfect smile.
I can't say he was an adept comedian back then.
Kyoko Koizumi is great in this scene.
The feeling of...
metal.
I wanted to try out things that hadn't really been done before, like this.
Did we use fake blood here? No, it's CGI.
A blood-soaked face suits her.
I think the film was R-rated because of that scene.
Film rating is unavoidable.
Kyoko Koizumi
is very talented with this sort of reaction.
Eita has appeared.
During this period, he wasn't so...
well-known, which happened afterwards. He made his debut in Blue Spring.
And continued through to 9 Souls and then this.
After this...
he appeared in various TV shows
and became a big name.
He's still famous nowadays.
This song is from Johannes Brahms.
While I was looking for various music to fit the Babylon theme
I found Serge Gainsbourg's 'Baby Alone in Babylone,'
which uses the music by Johannes Brahms.
And is sung by, not Charlotte... Jane Birkin that song.
The original music came from a symphony by Johannes Brahms.
I really liked it and thought it would match this film well.
I searched for a LP of it
and got the rights.
The person who designed this tatoo is a guy called Han who had a shop in Shibuya.
Han drew this on.
The trousers he's wearing... are from Sao Paolo in Brazil.
From a tattoo artist
named Jun Matsui. That's what he's doing for a living.
There's even a documentary film about him.
He's famous as a tattoo artist, but he made these trousers too.
At first we asked him if he could do the tattoo design
but either he was busy
Or we just thought it would be better if Han did it.
Is what I was told.
This belt is also from him.
Eita changes a lot when he drinks.
Not so much at this time, but very much so nowadays.
There are lots of issues that people have,
so it's a bit pointless to talk about it.
'Happy Birthday' is written.
My image was of being reborn.
I totally forgot if that was in the original book or not.
I don't remember which parts were my ideas and which were from the book.
The original story was written by Mitsuyo Kakuta
as part of a short stories collection,
which featured different stories about each member
of a family.
So when I adapted it into a screenplay
I mixed up all the stories into one
and fleshed it out.
Adding in my own ideas and various aspects
So it can be seen as something completely different,
which is what it became.
Blue Spring was the same. It was part of a short stories collection.
So putting that into one complete story
and adding in my original ideas is something which I did during that time.
I made this film when I was around 34 years old.
I was 35 when it was released.
Scary situation, isn't it?
Your mistress in your home is like a horror film.
The flowers which are on the table changed a lot.
The florist would make new ones for each scene,
which was arranged symbolically.
The car stopped at the edge.
It was supposed to fall off, but stopped at the edge,
which made me feel that the luck was on my side.
Kyoko Koizumi was truly disgusted by Sonim's clothes and attitude,
like she was his real mother.
The shot is a bit out of focus but I liked it anyway.
So I chose to use this take.
The first day of shooting, if I remember correctly
was in this location I believe.
And this was the first scene to film.
With opening the drawer...
I told her to open the drawer and find a photo inside.
And this is actually a photo of Kyoko Koizumi when she was a child.
I didn't tell Kyoko Koizumi beforehand and snuck that photo in.
I wanted to see her reaction
so I didn't tell her.
Kyoko Koizumi and I had
this non-stop psychological battle to keep the tension between us.
I wanted to heighten that with her childhood memories
by blending in what actually happened in her own real life
and the character.
I tried very hard with that.
It's a world I'm unfamiliar with myself.
For a woman, the relationship with her mother
is something a man wouldn't understand, I think.
Those things we wouldn't understand are of course explained in the book
and that's why I wanted to adapt this book.
It's a story I couldn't write myself.
A mother-daughter relationship.
This is the voice of Takuji Suzuki who appeared in 9 Souls.
He's a film director now.
He's made a bunch of films.
I asked him to provide his voice.
The cinematographer is Junichi Fujisawa and lighting is Nariyuki Ueda.
They worked together on Seijun Suzuki's films.
His latter ones.
Camellia and a well.
That was the last shot we filmed. In a studio.
We reproduced that location there.
When we had finished shooting everything else.
We used water jets
and filmed it, I think.
This... this cut here.
That scene between Kyoko Koizumi and Michiyo Okusu was nerve-wracking.
It was shot during the earlier stages.
Kyoko Koizumi was trying to throw up for real.
I told her she shouldn't eat lunch beforehand.
With the flowers in bloom it must have been spring when we filmed it.
I painted the key red.
This is set when she's 15, so she was a little worried it would be okay
with her being 40 at the time.
I said 'It's not a problem'
with confidence, I remember.
Fried eggs.
Sort of a Hitchcock style.
While the camera was being spun around
using 2 axis, and film while also panning the camera,
was pretty hard to do.
When you see like this it looks seamlessly connecting together but
while we were filming it, I was wondering if it really would work with editing.
While shooting, I just thought that it would be possible, and it ended up okay.
She's a high schooler.
Itsuji Itao's haircut is amazing.
The way he pulls her. He's really funny.
That psychedelic look is great.
This is one of my favourite shots in the whole film.
This shot is...
the last shot we did with Kyoko Koizumi.
Shooting from behind
and then picking up and holding the kids wasn't rehearsed
but they loved it.
For this shot the kids were crying so much, it was hard to do.
Especially the one Itsuji Itao is holding.
Well, babies will do that if they're separated from their mother
and held by some guy they don't know.
From a video spinning constantly, then coming to a stop gives the feeling...
that it's still spinning.
A view from behind the bookshelf
sort of feeling here.
The way of changing up the way each shot is positioned,
is what I often do.
I was thinking at what point shall I add the bird's-eye view.
I thought if it showed their food then the audience would realize
that it's dinner time.
Rice with beans and miso soup.
They're all improvising here.
She's laughing for real because she stuttered.
I thought this scene would really give the best example of them as a real family.
The pre-decided dialogue
was said by Sonim only. Only that.
Sonim's very flexible.
Well, how do I put it?
The type of household which has a middle-class income
was the house it was set in.
Quite big with a kitchen counter.
I wonder how much rent was?
This was the first film that Masahiro Hirota appeared in
Kyoko Koizumi has appeared in loads of TV shows and films
so she's taken him in.
To the way she's acting.
Acting across from someone who is doing it for the first time
gives quite a fresh feeling.
Is something she said was very interesting.
Itsuji Itao's doing something here
His character had a foot fetish.
For this, because Sonim was an idol at that time,
we had to ask her boss what would be okay for shooting this scene.
We had to ask.
Michiyo Okusu is smoking here. She's quit now apparently.
The person on the left is a member of staff from Phantom Films.
He also appeared in Blue Spring.
His name's Sato.
He's just a worker for a film distribution company.
That's the first time Michiyo Okusu has acted like that.
There's a legendary story that on the set of a Seijun Suzuki
Michiyo Okusu set the assistant director's hair on fire with a lighter.
I wanted to bring that same energy here.
Michiyo Okusu was how old then?
This was 17 years ago.
Around 60 I guess.
Maybe I shouldn't have said that. She's the same age as Sayuri Yoshinaga.
Looks young though.
She really wears that kimono well.
Sonim is...
very physically strong.
She's quite powerful.
She could easily crush an empty can.
She can easily do it. She was into boxing I believe.
She learned it for a TV show.
You can see her physical strength here.
Someone like Michiyo Okusu getting angry is scary.
Sometimes Michiyo Okusu and I
go out for a meal together.
It surprised me that someone like her
would do these gestures.
For this, she tried out a few ways of acting this scene beforehand
and we discussed a bit then shot it.
I thought, if you're gonna go that far
should you really go this far? Well, she could and did.
I remember that feeling.
Michiyo Okusu said to me that she'd never been to a love hotel before.
She said 'Are they really like this'?
Apparently she's really into Korean TV dramas at the moment.
She once asked me to get a ticket for TVXQ,
when they played at Tokyo Dome. I did it for her.
The windows in Love Hotels don't open.
Maybe to stop people escaping or it's just dangerous.
We waited for the sun goes down to film this scene with a back-light effect.
Luckily the sun appeared.
This is a great shot.
The eyes of Anne Suzuki, even at the age of 17, were so pure.
Kyoko Koizumi said that while acting.
Having such pure eyes
was like an invitation for something to happen.
Maybe because she was still in her teens.
As the 'New Town' was a bit away from the center of Tokyo
the sunset was beautiful.
Near the mountains too.
This is her entering a totally barren apartment
So,
when the shooting was
totally finished,
we removed everything inside.
And we shot this in the studio.
Though the next cut was
done on location.
As you see.
This was real.
Though making a shot like this for real is actually quite hard to do.
The camera is on an angle with a telephoto lens.
Then on top of that you shake it as at that time there were no stabilizers.
Of course, we shot it on film.
So,
You set it up and swing the camera.
It was hard to do.
If you've time it's not as tough, but we didn't have much.
Michiyo Okusu acting by herself. I gave her free reign.
Just decided on the concept.
I...
...shot this. It doesn't feel like a film of mine. Well it's been 17 years.
I don't remember a thing.
This was shot in the studio,
so I guess they setup the electrics for it.
Though sometimes it was spun it by hand.
Here,
this Ferris wheel is still there.
Please go to Yokohama to see it.
This techno music was made
by a friend of mine.
Birthday.
Personally,
I don't like to have birthday celebration on my birthday.
To be honest.
After starring in this film, Kyoko said that having flowers at home is nice.
She started to keep some flowers at home at all times.
During this time, Michiyo Okusu was a real heavy smoker.
So she was happy to be able to smoke all the time.
She kept on messing up her lines here as somehow she couldn't say 'masculine.'
Oh yeah.
This was done in I take.
Well,
to do this monologue as I take,
we tried various things.
We shot Sonim only in high speed, the others in time-lapse,
and shot with and without Sonim.
This is,
a really long take, too.
This sort of situation is awful.
I wonder who made that doll.
Who was it?
I don't remember.
Somebody from the art department.
This is another long take.
This is the brother of Koji Chihara, the lead actor from Pornostar.
Usually the person on those TV parts is Seiji Chihara.
For this long take, we removed half of the wall from this side,
then as the camera rolled, we put back parts of the wall.
From the kitchen side of the wall was removed
so the camera could pass through.
Then on the right side the wall was put back... sort of thing.
With all the cast and crew moving along with the camera
Kyoko Koizumi couldn't relax, so her right foot is tapping away.
We weren't sure if that tut Kyoko did, was appropriate or not.
Kyoko Koizumi
revealing her rebellious side she had in her youth.
But I thought that was good.
But for this long take, the person who messed up the most was Michiyo Okusu.
By the most, it was still just 2 or 3 times.
I was sort of happy a person like Michiyo Okusu could get nervous.
One time I was out drinking with Kyoko Koizumi often,
around the time of Blue Spring.
When she was speaking on the phone
I heard her saying "drop dead."
Her saying that was so far away from the image I had of her
That I thought it was hilarious and used it in the film.
Though the dialogue in the script was just saying 'Die', but Kyoko
said something slightly different each time.
That was funny.
The acting between Anne Suzuki and Kyoko Koizumi,
Kyoko later said that "Anne got me with those piercing eyes."
Well,
shooting this film was fun.
People's memories...
there are so many things I forgot.
That was a 7 minute I take. It took a whole day to do.
It was tough.
Though I wonder if that feeling is coming through on this audio commentary.
This was I take, done with the camera circling around.
Is how we shot it.
We did it in 3 or 4 goes.
I spoke to Michiyo Okusu about a lot of things.
And she got, not angry, but got sort of emotional.
We did one take where she couldn't stop crying.
I remember the costume director yelling at me, saying that I went too far.
But that was
as this take was something where all her emotions went into.
After Hanging Garden
Michiyo Okusu didn't work for 2 or 3 years I believe.
She didn't feel the need to.
Kyoko Koizumi too, took 2 years off
from working.
She turned down all offers.
This scene really
brought a lot of emotions out.
I took 4 years off too, but that's another story.
The camera was on a circular dolly
so we can't capture their face expressions all the time.
So I said, when this line was spoken I wanted the focus on Kyoko Koizumi,
then on that line I wanted the camera towards Michiyo Okusu.
I asked Junichi Fujisawa on camera and Ono the key grip
to adjust the moving speed while watching their acting.
After doing it a few times
it became possible to do. Honing in on specific points on their faces.
For example, I wanted Kyoko Koizumi's face at this point.
so the camera should be at this point.
We were pretty detailed in deciding on specific points like that.
Michiyo Okusu's lines and
lengths, and the timings of her blow out the candles
were measured
precisely while filming the scene.
"My smile is a prayer." This line is
reflecting Kyoko's feeling of her being ex-pop idol.
So I wanted to put that in.
There was one part of dialogue which Kyoko Koizumi changed herself.
That was great. Maybe it was a coincidence,
Or just came out from her heart.
Blowing out the flower petals. I can't really say it here but
there is actually an inner meaning to why Michiyo blew out the flower petals.
Though it's a private and quite personal reason.
I can't talk about it.
But it's something I wanted to have in the film.
That's Jun Kunimura.
Only filmed from behind,
is how he appeared.
Though he looks to the side here
He came all the way just for this scene.
He makes money out of his butt.
Or his back.
He was so cool.
Amazing.
And with that he left.
Kids on a rope. Actually, I saw that during location scouting.
I know it's to stop them running off, but it struck me as something strange.
Filming Kyoko Koizumi here perfectly embodied the role she was playing.
Everything was so smooth.
I remember the filming duration of Hanging Garden to be around a month.
Something around that.
In those times, a film like this would have cost around $3 million.
On average, around that time.
The dandelion fluff can be seen on a big screen. Here they are.
Were you to look left, you'd see Kyoko Koizumi blowing non-stop.
It was cute.
Hanging Garden.
I like the way these two scenes are connected.
Actually there was a scene in between, but it was deleted.
A song by Johannes Brahms.
Oh, it's Kiyohiko Shibukawa.
He was still young then.
I just told him of the situation
and let him think about it and improvise.
Is the way we did it.
"That's for drying laundry," is something my ex-wife said.
I thought it was a good line so I used it in the film.
Sonim really is so physically able.
And full of energy.
I wondered if she'd be okay as the bus windows were quite high up.
Especially with leather shoes.
Inside the bus Kiyohiko Shibukawa and Seiroku Nakazawa continued to speak.
But as none of it was relevant to the story as a whole I cut the sound out.
I like its position.
This was the last big scene we shot, the climax.
I thought Kyoko Koizumi looked somehow seductive.
Looking back at it.
They've been arrested
This wasn't in the original novel, I think.
For the housing projects, there was this main bus which went around them,
the path to the outside world.
The housewife,
and the mother,
the role of Kyoko Koizumi was that of someone who didn't leave home much.
She's always at home.
I wanted to show that situation by using this bus
in that way.
In a place like here, it was very normal for the people who lived here
to be in that situation.
I feel that this story was born out of that situation.
I think.
If you run a business at home,
and if school was close, too,
this sort of story wouldn't come about.
Living in these urban towns.
I wonder how old Itsuji Itao was at this time? Around 40?
Everyone was young then.
Saying they were young is just a memory.
And we get close to the climax.
We created the rain here.
I had seen something like this before somewhere
So I asked the art department to make it.
Falling flowers.
During this scene Kyoko said she wasn't confident in the look of her hands
she was embarrassed and asked us not to film them too closely.
Which did we shoot first?
I think we shot this first.
On the other side of the line is
Kyoko Koizumi, talking from another location
and Michiyo Okusu listening through an earpiece in her left ear.
That's how we filmed it.
We filmed that
then after we shot Kyoko Koizumi's part.
It was that sort of shoot.
When I spoke to Michiyo Okusu ahead of filming this movie
she told me lots of stories, as I asked lots of questions.
And we incorporated them into the film.
"The really important things, you take to your grave,"
was an example of that.
The people who are listening to this have already seen the film, right?
So they know of the rain of blood.
We built a set in Nikkatsu's studios.
A big one.
Maybe not so big, but a pretty decent sized studio.
From here is rains blood.
Raining blood means the studio will be covered in blood.
The drainage system there wasn't great
and we thought it wouldn't properly flush it all out.
A complaint would be made against us by the studio.
So I was told that everyone who worked that day will be banned afterward.
But we did it.
I thought that something seemed to be missing so added this one cut in after.
Though this was from the time of shooting on film, so not as easy.
I thought the crudeness of the shot was good.
During editing of this scene I thought it looked nice in black and white
to give the feeling of returning to the past...
is what I thought.
That was the last thing I did during editing.
And it connects to her tears.
It's arrived.
This rain of blood could only be done once.
No forgiving any mistakes.
This was CGI.
At one point I was told maybe I've gone too far with it
but...
if you're gonna do it, go full on.
This part here was done with water and colored red after.
And...
in front of Kyoko Koizumi
was the photo which you see here.
This is actually one and only real-life photo of her when she was a child.
I made a copy of it and placed it in front of Koizumi Kyoko for this scene.
As I wanted her not to think of this film, but to think back upon her own life.
Using high-speed filming, the camera was held by hand and rotated around her.
At this timing they got on a crane and went up
but the camera went out of focus.
But I utilized that
and added those flashes then connected to this shot.
That wasn't the initial idea,
but conversely that issue with focus made adding these shots easier.
Then when the camera came back into focus
the scene returned back to her.
The cinematographer and the focus puller
got on the same crane.
From there the crane went up.
We did try a camera movement but we didn't rehearse.
If you were to rain this much blood
of course, it could only be done in one day and only once.
They threatened me.
But Kyoko Koizumi is the type of person who
could hit a home run on demand.
So she's not the sort of person
who would mess up anywhere. I had faith in her.
She could do it.
And...
I wanted to let it run
until we ran out of film.
Actually it ran out of film but I wanted hear her more
so I didn't say cut and heard her yelling for a while.
And we rained blood all over her
but getting that in your throat makes your throat sore.
So afterward she wasn't able to speak.
When filming finished
and Kyoko Koizumi left the studio,
I went to her and said "Happy Birthday."
I remember that.
That ding-dong bell sound is actually from a guitar.
While in the studio making the music for the film
I added it.
While looking at this video, we added a ding-dong twang on guitar.
At this point, the song is starting to play.
Kazuhide Yamaji who did the music for Pornostar and 9 Souls,
was on guitar, he composed it as well.
The vocals were by UA.
Akira Sutayama on drums, Yumiko Ohno on bass,
recording engineer was ZAK, and recorded in one take.
We actually did 3 takes, but the first was the best.
She looks great here. Totally refreshed.
We filmed this part first, then the rain of blood.
The other way?
Was it the rain of blood first then this? Nah, couldn't have been.
Would have been a mess.
We did this first.
Unlocked.
Sound effects were by Masaya Kitada.
He's worked on a lot of films such as those from Shinya Tsukamoto
He did this.
This song is from UA.
It was called "In the middle of this slope" or "that slope."
I believe.
In the middle of a slope,
I lost my way and crouched on the slope, something like that.
When this film was released in cinemas
I was arrested for drug possession, so its theatrical release...
had problems.
But I'm happy it could get released.
Now, with this
I'm so happy that it will get released on bluray in the UK.
And people will be able to see it.
On the family tombs of Japanese people
they actually have written down the names of the still living.
The people who have died are written in white, and the living are in red
So,
while thinking of that
I thought that on the end credits of films they're rarely written in red.
So did it like that.
I still do that nowadays.
It was 'In the middle of this slope.'
Usually end credits roll from top to bottom, but I don't like that.
So I have them like this, cut together.
Films are born between cuts, I believe that.
Plus this way makes it possible to match with beats of music,
So I prefer this way.
Having the last cut of a film showing my name
makes it feel that this film is mine alone.
But its something we all made together
so I wanted to add something in after the end credits finished.
So for those people who watched the film til the end of the credits
would be able to feel something extra.
So I always add one extra shot in.
This time it's a flower.
But for this crane movement, I was told off by the crane operator
who said he didn't know the rhythm needed to match the crane movement.
Though on set, I always carried an acoustic guitar with me
and played it throughout the filming process.
So for this the crane operator told me to play something.
So for this camera movement I constantly played the song you hear now.
I had learned it from the band.
And played it on an acoustic guitar.
I remember that well.
And so we return back to the lamp shade.
I think we did a good job overall.
A film from 17 years ago.
Thank you very much.