We've been digging for information on The First Contact (Nice No Mori ナイスの森), the next film from Japanese director ever since a flyer and trailers for it turned up in the DVD release for Ishii's The Taste of Tea. Why the effort? Well, the Taste of Tea is easily one of the best films of the year and Nice No Mori will reunite Ishii (best known on these shores as the man responsible for the anime sequence in Kill Bill) with two of his best - and my favorite - stars: Tadanobu Asano and Susumu Terajima. Well, the kind and generous Jason Gray just spotted a report on the film in Sports Nippon and kindly sent a translation our way. Voila.
"Canned coffee commercial co-stars Asano Tadanobu (31) and Terajima Susumu (41), who play brothers in the ads, are bringing the duo to the big screen. They'll reprise the characters they played in the ads for the omnibus film 『ナイスの森〜Ｔｈｅ Ｆｉｒｓｔ Ｃｏｎｔａｃｔ〜』("Nice no mori: The First Contact", culled from 21 short films. The plot will focus on the two geeky brothers and their lack of girlfriends.
The Kirin Beverage canned coffee TV ads feature the pair running through the streets and screaming brand names "Fire!" and "Gold Rush!" The comical campaign began in February of this year, with the fifth batch of ads currently on air, though there will be changes made for the film version.
--edit—(background on three directors of Nice no mori)
In the commercials, the pair are dubbed "The Rich Brothers" as they grasp the gold-coloured cans of coffee, but in the movie they'll be called "The Guitar Brothers", with an added third, younger (and foreign) sibling. Oldest brother Masakazu (Terajima), a high school teacher, and brother Masaru try to get girlfriends by taking crash courses on how to dance and play guitar.
Holding a "Guitar Brothers" megaphone, director Ishii Katsuhito said of the brothers' big screen debut "Just the two of them together in the commercials was funny..."
"I can really let loose when I act with Terajima," says Asano, who plays the younger of the pair, who seem to have become friendly brothers in real life. The film is set to open next year."
So the feature's based on coffee ads? And what's with the Japanese and their coffee ads, anyway? Back in the day a Japanese canned coffee company hired the entire cast of Twin Peaks to do some spots for them ... but enough of that, here are the trailers.
Teaser (downloadable AVI)
Trailer (downloadable AVI)