The reason Kōsi Mizukami asserts "bleaching once a week" is a "natural approach"... Interview for the film WIND BREAKER

The live-action film WIND BREAKER will be released nationwide starting Friday, December 5th. The story depicts the growth of the protagonist, Haruka Sakura, who only thought about becoming the strongest fighter, as he meets and spends time with the members of Bōfūrin, a group dedicated to protecting their town.

One of the highlights of this film is the intense action sequences with Shishitōren, the organization that confronts Bōfūrin. In this article, we present excerpts from our interview with Kōsi Mizukami, the actor who plays Sakura, where we asked him about his focus on the action scenes and the sense of reality he brought to his performance.

——In the action scenes of this film, we could really feel the realism of the pain. Were there any special filming techniques used on set?

Mizukami：In this film, we had the major challenge of 'visualizing the wind,' so we used ADR (post-recording). Since large fans were used to represent the wind, the sound couldn't be recorded naturally. There was a process later of adding the voices via post-recording, and during that time, I received directing instructions from Director Hagiwara (Kentarō) for the first time in a while. I found that none of the direction was anything I would question.

——Does that mean there was a shared understanding of what the core focus should be throughout the process of creating the film?

Mizukami：Yes. Even before accepting the offer, I confirmed things with the director, such as, 'This is the kind of passion that is put into this work, right?' I think I was able to share the same passion as the director and we were looking in the same direction.

It's true that bad things tend to leave a stronger impression or memory on people, but even if I try to recall them now, nothing like that happened during the filming of this work. I mainly remember the exchanges where there was a shared understanding—the kind where if I asked, 'Is this right?' the response would be, 'Yes, that's right.'