NHK back into movies

[Aaron Gerow]

NHK announced last week that it will be reentering the movie-making 
business after a respite of about 8 years.  They will produce a film 
entitled _Karafuru_ (Colorful) to be directed by Nakahara Shun from a 
script by Morita Yoshimitsu.  The two had previously worked together in 
their Nikkatsu Roman Poruno days.

NHK's subsidiary, NHK Enterprise 21, announced the move as part of an 
effort to create "soft" in a multi-media market where soft can be gold.  
NHK had previously been involved in film production, but was severely 
burned with the 1990 Hollywood co-production _Crisis 2050_ (known as 
_Solor Crisis_ in the US, I think) which had a total budget of 7 billion 
yen.  It has since restricted its involvement to mere investment in 
productions like _Futari_ and _Aitsu_. _Karafuru_ will have a budget of 
150 million yen and will aim for the mini-theater market.

If the project succeeds, more films will be made--and not just ones the 
Ministry of Education likes, the producers added.  Some future works may 
even be sold to commercial networks and not NHK.

This comes as part of a recent trend of increased investment in motion 
picture production by Japanese television networks.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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