Rising like the sun - Yoshitomo Yonetani interview

Written by A. H. on 19 May 2014

It isn't unusual to sit down to interview a Japanese guest in the UK and find them to be enjoying life - an all-expenses paid trip to a foreign country isn't exactly something to be frowned at, after all. However, we're yet to meet any such guest that has managed to match the bubbling enthusiasm of Tiger & Bunny: The Rising's director, Yoshitomo Yonetani - whether sat at a table at the BFI's bar to chat with us, or in front of an expectant audience following the well-received European premiere of his film, Mr. Yonetani was a constant source of grins and laughter that made it hard to imagine him being the kind of director to bark instructions to his subordinates. Whatever his approach to sitting in the director's chair, it seems to have held him in good stead, and we found Mr. Yonetani in a relaxed and candid mood as we quizzed him on his efforts on both theatrical Tiger & Bunny films prior to that all-important premiere.

First of all, welcome to the UK - is this your first time here?

Yoshitomo Yonetani: It's my first time, thank you.

Have you had a chance to check out anywhere in London yet?

Yoshitomo Yonetani: Just now in fact! We went to the Sherlock Holmes museum.

How does it feel attending the European premiere of a film you've directed; do you have any particular emotions surrounding that at this moment in time?

Yoshitomo Yonetani: Up until very recently, my desk was my world - I had this very narrow little world, and I was just working away. Now, all of a sudden I'm spending half a day on a plane and I'm here - it's just so different and such a big jump, but it's fantastic fun.

Before talking about The Rising we should start by talking about the first Tiger & Bunny film, The Beginning, which was an interesting blend of a retelling of some early parts of the TV series and an all-new story. What drove the decision to setup the film in this way, and did it pose any particular challenges?

Yoshitomo Yonetani: With The Beginning, the idea was there before I came on-board as the director - it was the screenwriter for the TV series Masafumi Nishida who had some ideas left over that he'd wanted to get into the TV series but there hadn't been room, so he wrote the scenario for The Beginning from that. For The Rising, he and his team wanted to carry the story on a bit, and they came up with the plot for The Rising.

This is possibly a question for the screenwriter rather than yourself really, but was it difficult creating a new story and villain for The Beginning that had to integrate into the middle of the existing story created by the TV series?

Yoshitomo Yonetani: What was difficult with The Beginning was that the writer wanted it to be a human drama - he wanted it to be a film with lots of dialogue and not an action film. I didn't think that was really going to work as a film as it wouldn't be any fun, so the challenge for me was how to construct the film in a way that would still be entertaining. I put forward lots of ideas at the storyboarding stage, but the most difficult thing was at the end of the film, where you reach the climax but Tiger doesn't actually do anything, and he mustn't do anything so he's working as hard as he can not to - that was the most difficult bit.

With The Rising, we only had the plot when I came on-board and so I tried to come up with some different designs and different ideas, so there were a lot of ideas put forward at that point. One of those ideas was to have the film set somewhere like the UK in fact.