Japan was chosen as backdrop of the movie’s love story as a result of it’s photo-worthy, mentioned lead star Christopher de Leon. —PHOTO FROM JG PRODUCTIONS/ YOUTUBE
The romantic drama “Once I Met You in Tokyo” was initially meant to be shot in Italy, however “Japan is so colourful and photo-worthy,” in line with its lead actor Christopher de Leon, who can be the movie’s affiliate director.
Christopher defined that their group really went past Tokyo, “[We needed] to shoot some scenes within the lovely countryside. This was purported to be in Italy, the place lots of OFWs (abroad Filipino staff) reside. However we realized that we’ll simply be seeing the identical issues. Japan, then again, is so colourful due to the cherry blossoms. There, each season has its personal colour. The flowers are completely different. The fields, the fruits and bushes are additionally completely different, relying on the season,” he advised reporters over dinner just lately.
“The Japanese tradition could be very a lot completely different, too. Additionally, if we simply stayed in Tokyo, we wouldn’t be capable to see most of those, so we shot within the outskirts the place we met some farmers. We even have scenes that characteristic them throughout harvest season,” mentioned Christopher.
As an end result, Christopher mentioned he and main woman Vilma Santos additionally needed to memorize lengthy strains in Japanese, or Nihongo. “My character is meant to have lots of Japanese buddies as a result of he has been dwelling there for some time. One time, Vi needed to shoot a scene together with her talking in Nihongo. Sadly, she needed to do a number of takes. After doing her third take, she sat on the ground and mentioned, ‘Ayoko nang mag-Hapon!’ She bought it will definitely,” Christopher recalled.
MMFF entry
“Once I Met You in Tokyo” talks of unconditional love, sacrifice and growing old from the angle of two aged staff. Variety-hearted Azon (Vilma) meets Joey (Christopher), a divorcee who nonetheless harbors the scars of his ex-wife’s infidelity. It’s an official entry to the 2023 Metro Manila Movie Pageant (MMFF), which is able to begin on Christmas Day.
Christopher defined that a part of his work as affiliate director was “to method Vi and inform her what to do when the opposite two administrators (Rado Peru and Rommel Penza) are too shy or intimidated to do it. How do you inform somebody like Vilma Santos that you simply discover her performing in a single specific scene missing and that she has to do it once more? How do you clarify to her that you could see this specific emotion from her? How do you name out to her if you wish to ‘minimize’ a take? That’s what I used to be tasked to do,” mentioned Christopher, who has been doing films with Vilma because the late Seventies.
In the meantime, Vilma mentioned she personally requested for Christopher to be the affiliate director, including that she even threatened to not do the venture if the latter refused. She defined that, as a former Batangas consultant, she took a break from making films for six years, so she anticipated that there could be instances when she wouldn’t really feel too assured performing in entrance of the digital camera.
PHOTO FROM JG PRODUCTIONS/ YOUTUBE
Motivation
“I mentioned I’ll want anyone I’m snug working with who will assist me really feel motivated throughout the shoot. Each time Yetbo (Vilma’s pet identify for Christopher) would direct me, particularly once we have been already capturing the ending, he would additionally cry or develop into teary-eyed whereas exhibiting me how I ought to ship my strains. We might get so carried away by the feelings of our characters, typically. It’s a plus issue for me that Yetbo is directing and guiding me. He would additionally inform me at any time when the digital camera would do a closeup and once I would wish to make fewer actions,” Vilma recalled.
Based on “Once I Met You in Tokyo” producers Rowena Ramaji and Rajan Gidwani, Christopher is so hands-on that he personally picked the film’s theme track, Apo Climbing Society’s “Once I Met You.”
“We known as up Jim Paredes in Australia to ask how we might go about utilizing the track for the venture. You’d assume we have already got an amazing singer in Darren Espanto, who’s a part of the solid, but it surely was Christopher who recorded the theme track. I noticed him give his all to singing it,” mentioned Rajan. The track was composed by Jim and Nationwide Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab, and sung by Danny Javier.
“Each line of the track tells the story of ‘Once I Met You in Tokyo,’” mentioned Vilma. “We additionally mentioned that, since we’re all experiencing laborious instances, we would like our story to be one thing that may make its viewers really feel joyful, to make them kilig. When you return to the movies that Christopher and I did collectively, our characters have been at all times combating and hysterical. We might have confrontations. There was at all times a 3rd occasion. Right here, there’s none. The story is extra on how the love between Azon and Joey was fashioned and the way they’d face challenges collectively afterward.”
She continued: “It’s additionally about forgiveness and second probabilities—for his character—in addition to the experiences of OFWs who labored so laborious overseas solely to find that the cash she has been sending all these years weren’t put to good use. That’s my character. It additionally tries to ask the query: At our age, can we nonetheless fall in love?”
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Christopher agreed by saying, “We made certain that our film could be a love story about folks our age—of people that simply forgot about romance and selected to focus solely on work. Imagine it or not, there are folks in related conditions.”
