Latest news with #Adachi
South China Morning Post
8 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
‘Landmark kid': Japan dad spends US$700,000 to advertise son's photos to share cuteness
A Japanese father who runs a real estate company has gone viral for spending 100 million yen (US$700,000) to plaster advertisements bearing his son's photos on footbridges, buses and convenience stores. The boy, who is known as Yu-kun, is well known in the Adachi area of Tokyo and has been affectionately dubbed 'The Landmark Kid' by local residents. His smiling image is everywhere, from massive footbridge banners and parking signs to city buses. One of the huge adverts featuring an image of Yu-kun as a young boy. Photo: His image even appears in convenience store windows. Yu-kun is not a child star, a model or a prodigy, he is simply the son of a real estate company owner who thought his child was so adorable that the entire city deserved to see him. 'My son was just too adorable when he was little. I thought, all of Tokyo should know,' his father said. To make that happen he turned his son's funniest childhood photos into a full-blown advertising campaign, creating more than 10 different versions in total. To date, he has spent nearly 100 million yen on the advertisements.
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
'Escape': Director Adachi Masao on His Film About a Leftist Who Spent Decades on the Run
(© Escape Production Committee 2025) January 2024 saw the unexpected reappearance of a man who had been a fugitive from justice for nearly half a century. In the hospital where he had been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, he suddenly revealed himself to be Kirishima Satoshi, one of Japan's most wanted criminals, who had been sought for his involvement in a spate of corporate bombing attacks in 1974 and 1975. For 50 years, Kirishima's mugshot—long hair, black-rimmed glasses, and devilish grin—had peered out from police stations and railway stations around the country. His face had become one of the most recognized in Japan. The news caused a national sensation. Just four days later, on January 29, he breathed his last. Earlier in the month, he had been admitted to the hospital in Kamakura, Kanagawa, under the assumed name Uchida Hiroshi. On January 25, he revealed his real identity to the hospital authorities. The Public Security Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police questioned him the following day, and the news caused a sensation. A wanted poster of Kirishima Satoshi, left. (© Escape Production Committee 2025) On February 27, DNA tests confirmed his identity. The Metropolitan Police submitted documents for his prosecution in connection with five bombing attacks. On March 21, however, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Office decided not to pursue the case as the suspect had since passed away. Film Directed by Former Member of Japanese Red Army Just over a year later, a film version of the story has been released with Kirishima as the main character. The director Adachi Masao shared his thoughts about what drew him to the story and his fascination with the mystery of why Kirishima chose to reveal his identity and live out his final days under his real name. Few people are as well-suited to exploring the mindset of this idealistic, misguided outsider as Adachi, whose own background and experience resonate with the complexities of Kirishima's life. Adachi, a generation older than the Zenkyōtō (All-Campus Joint Struggle Committees) that brought leftist mayhem to Japanese university campuses in the 1960s, was involved in the protests over the revision of Japan's Security Treaty with the United States in 1960. But he took no part in the turmoil that followed, preferring to watch with detachment as the New Left movement unfolded across the country. Throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, he kept his distance from radical movements, preferring to reflect on politics, cinema, and revolution from the perspective of an artist. As well as developing his distinctive take on the movement as a critic and theorist, he was also an activist who used filmmaking as his platform for expressing his political views. Actor Furutachi Kanji plays the part of Kirishima from middle age on. (© Escape Production Committee 2025) In the 1970s, Adachi began traveling to the Middle East as a journalist, researching the activities of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He joked that his motivation was to see if 'a drunk from Shinjuku could become a revolutionary.' In 1974, he traveled to Palestine again, where he met Shigenobu Fusako, a key member of the Japanese Red Army. Adachi became involved more directly in the political struggle, working as a JRA spokesman. He was placed on an international wanted list and was arrested in Lebanon in 1997, where he served three years in prison before being extradited to Japan in 2000. He resumed his work as a film director, and his prolific career continues to this day. In September 2022, Adachi made headlines with the accelerated release of Revolution +1 , a film depicting the life of the young man who assassinated former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō. The film was rushed to release on the day of Abe's state funeral, followed by a more polished final edit three months later. This latest film continues Adachi's ambitious working pace. What drives him to produce his films so quickly? Adachi reflected on his reactions when he heard that Kirishima had revealed his true identity. 'I was amazed by how long he had managed to evade capture, and shocked when he finally revealed his identity. I kept mulling it over for hours after I heard the news. Why did he give himself up when he could have gone to his death without being caught? He was so close to pulling off the perfect escape. I eventually realized that by revealing his identity, he was ready to give voice and expression to everything he had experienced during his time on the run. That's when I knew I had to make a film about it, and I made up my mind to do it as quickly as possible.' 'I think he wanted to make clear to people that his life on the run was a form of struggle. By making that declaration, he was sending a message to his comrades—those who had taken their own lives, those who had survived, those who had been imprisoned. Once I got this, the subject of the film was clear, and I felt confident about moving ahead and making it right away.' The Daily Struggles of Life on the Run In the film, as Adachi portrays scenes from Kirishima's lonely secret life, he conjures up imaginary characters for Kirishima to talk with: both comrades from his past and earlier versions of himself. After a series of internal dialogues, Kirishima, informed that he has only a week to live, finally finds the exit he has been searching for—to end his life as Kirishima Satoshi. Through this process of self-examination, Adachi seeks to depict not only Kirishima's unwavering belief in revolution but also his honest struggle with everyday anxieties and desires. Through Kirishima's self-questioning, the audience is invited to connect with an apparently ordinary man, buffeted by the price he paid for his ideals and the worldly passions of everyday life. Kirishima made his living as a day laborer. (© Escape Production Committee 2025) 'As a young man, his real ambition was to start a band. But when he went to university, he met survivors of the New Left movement, began to take social issues more seriously, and was fired up with a passion for social justice. I don't think he ever saw himself as a true revolutionary. In those days, nearly 10,000 people were arrested or pursued by the police for their involvement in student protests. 'Once the statute of limitations passed, many of them returned home, took over the family business, and recanted their views or turned their backs on the movement. But what I want to say is that even for those who returned to everyday life, it often marked the start of a new struggle in the context of their daily lives.' Adachi Masao talks about Escape . (© Hanai Tomoko) Behind this idea is Adachi's long-held concern about the stagnant situation in which young people find themselves in Japan today—something he has grappled with since returning home 25 years ago, after being away for 26 years. 'When I came back, I felt like Urashima Tarō, the character from the folktale who returns home after what he believes is a short stay in the Dragon Palace under the sea, only to find that centuries have passed. The old systems that I knew seemed to have been swept away, and I was shocked by the reality of life for young people, which had become even more difficult than before. There was a sense of suffocation, as though people were wrapped in cotton, and they couldn't even express what was so stifling about the situation. More than twenty years later, it's only gotten worse. It's not about blaming the younger generation. It's not their fault. We in the older generation are the ones who shaped this society; it's our responsibility that things have turned out this way. I'm talking about people of my generation, as well as those who came after us who were involved in the All-Campus Joint Struggle. The defeat we brought on ourselves is what created the present era. The most important thing we can do is to accept that reality and take responsibility for it in our daily lives.' (© Escape Production Committee 2025) (Originally published in Japanese. Reporting and text by Matsumoto Takuya of . Photos of Adachi Masao © Hanai Tomoko. Banner photo: The film director Adachi Masao. © Hanai Tomoko.)
