Go Furukawa was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1976. He majored in Japanese at Meikai University. After graduating, he entered the film industry as a production assistant and worked as an assistant director for Asahara Yuzo’s “Free and Easy 15: No Tomorrow for Hama-chan?” (2004). He then directed the short film “Dance?” (2010). “Kaneko′s Commissary” is his first feature film as a director.
On the occasion of his film “Kaneko’s Commissary” screening at Busan International Film Festival, we speak with him about shooting a film on an unusual subject, the female characters in the film, the famous actors in the cast and his future projects.
Why did you decide to shoot a movie about this particular concept of the detention center commissary?
When I was working as assistant director, I worked in “Departures” by Yojiro Takita. I was quite moved by the concept of the person who is preparing the deceased for the funeral. Since that time, I wanted to shoot a movie about a special type of occupation for my feature debut. That is why I picked the theme of the commissary.
Can you give us some details about the Japanese detention centers in Japan?
They differ from prisons in various ways. For example, the people working in detention centers are government officials so they have days off during weekends and official holidays, which is why no visitation is allowed during these times. Also, detention centers hold people who are not on trial, or people who are waiting for their trials or people who have been convicted and are waiting for their sentences. When their sentence is announced, then they move into prison centers.
I found the character of Miwako, Shinji’s wife, fascinating. Can you give me some more details about her conception?
First of all, this story is an original one I wrote and I am not a genius scriptwriter, so I have to get all these ideas for the characters and the episodes from the people around me. For example, from my wife, and for the mothers in the film, from my mother. Actually, Miwako’s character was inspired by my mother. She never had real love experiences from her family and she was missing the feeling of love. That is why she wanted children, not to feel lonely. This is the aspect I based Miwako on. Miwako is very dependent on her husband and I did not want to explore her background, but just this aspect. That was also the main thing I talked with Yoko Maki, who plays the character.
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Another very interesting character is the mother of the murderer. Can you tell me a bit about her?
Takashi’s mother is a weak person. She cannot bear loneliness and you can see that in the scene in the car, when the two of them are talking and he starts yelling at her, because he was infuriated by her weakness. This was the point where you could witness the balance in their relationship. She cannot open up her heart and express her real feelings, which creates a number of issues in her relationship with her son. There is also the scene where she asks Shinji to bring some stuff to her son in the detention center. This highlights that she cannot go to the detention center by herself, she just needs to ask someone to do it for her, just as she used to ask her son to take care of things. She cannot handle things in general, she is a weak person, and that is how I asked Kozue Kojima to play the character.
How did the casting work for the film? Although it is an independent production, there are some big names here, as in the case of Ruyhei Maruyama, Akira Terao, Yoko Maki, Takumi Kitamura and others.
Luckily, due to my work as assistant director in many projects, I met many actors, great actors, and I had time to talk with them and get to know each other. I felt that I could trust them and maybe they also feel the same, and that is how we built a relationship between the shootings. So, when I decided to shoot my movie, I contacted each cast member individually and tried to convince them to star in “Kaneko’s Commissary”. As a matter of fact, Akira Terao, who plays Shinji’s uncle, rejected my offer five or six times before he eventually accepted.
There is a lot of violence in the film, but it is not exactly depicted. It’s more implied than shown in the film. I was wondering why you chose this approach
You are right, there are many violent scenes in the film, but they are presented in small incidents and brief scenes. First of all, I never expected that my film would travel to Busan and so many people would watch it. The main actor, Ruyhei Maruyama, is a member of the Japanese male idol group Super Eight and he has many female fans. So, in order for them to enjoy the film, we tried to minimize the impact of the violent sequences. However, we do need some of them for the story, so you can still see the ones about the murder or when the main character goes to his son’s school and attacks the teachers.
Are there any future projects you are working on?
I was lucky I was able to shoot my first film based on my own original story. I would like to continue down this path, not only within Japan, but also overseas. However, since “Kaneko’s Commissary” is a bit of a heavy drama, in the future I would like to try and shoot a film that makes people laugh.
