Koji Yakusho

They own the rights to a lot of these.

Vengeance is Mine, The Pornographers is great, and The Eel that also stars Kujo.

But yeah.

It's

But I think in essence, it is a very Japanese film in terms of its aesthetic and its themes, and of course, the fact that it does take place in Japan.

And it follows the daily life of Hirayama, played by Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, who is a cleaner, a, a toilet cleaner for the Tokyo Toilet Project, which is an initiative to construct modern, high-quality public restrooms in Japan that have now gained worldwide recognition.

I don't recall if we have ever used the public toilets that are featured in this film on our trips to Japan, but I think one of the more, like, prominent or popular ones is the one that goes opaque.

Like, it's made of the glass panels, and it goes opaque, uh, when you lock it to, to give the user privacy.

Yeah, like, literally.

Kiriyama, played by Koji Yakusho, and it's just his life, day-to-day, and he's, like, really in complete zen with his day-to-day life.

It's kind of his routine.

Yeah.

But I've only seen him once before.

But also the film features Koji Yakusho, who... was in Cure and Pulse and more recently in Perfect Days which we both really liked and also just popped up here and there and then Ken Watanabe who I think was the first Japanese actor that really got famous in American movies with The Last Samurai and various Chris Nolan movies and stuff so For an old Japanese movie, and again, I'm not a big expert on Japanese film, it's immediately comforting to go, oh, there's three actors that I care about, quite high billing in this film.

So I have that, I mean, Koji you get from the opening scene.

In fact, it's almost like a precursor to the movie scene.

Casting also moved fast.

Wenders, uh, has said he imagined Hirayama in his head and cast Koji Yakusho, uh, within about two weeks of conceiving the character.

Yakusho reportedly prepared for the role by working alongside real Tokyo Toilet Project janitors.

Uh, hands-on research to get the physical rhythms of the job right.

So we are back doing something... slightly different, slightly more recent, uh, than, than usual for us.

We are covering perfect days directed by Wim Wenders and starring Koji Yakusho.

Um, it's obviously a pretty, pretty popular film nominated for an Oscar, won awards at Cannes, uh, only three two three years old so more recent pick uh this was your pick chris uh yep why did you pick it just wanted to cover it

just off of the sheer curiosity of a brand new wenders film as I've seen a few of his movies, and I like what he's done.

the white suit gangster in that movie very young version of himself

oh it's pretty cool actually he's a he's a

big name like you got ken watanabe and like the alive actors from Japan, not like Toshiro Mifune, who's obviously dead, but, um, yeah, Ken Watanabe and, and, and Koji Yakusho are kind of like the two huge name actors right now in Japan that are alive and kind of interesting that he, I didn't even know he was nominated for the best actor at the Oscars for this movie.

Um, I just knew it was nominated.