After winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2009 for his funeral-business drama "Okuribito (Departures)," Yojiro Takita faced the usual dilemma of the successful: what to do for a followup? This onetime maker of risqué comedies about train gropers had since become a director-for-hire working successfully in a variety of genres, from black comedy to feudal-era fantasy, but "Departures," which grossed a stupendous ¥6.5 billion in Japan while winning more than 100 prizes worldwide, was a triumph of a higher order that could be impossible to top.
("Tsurikichi Sanpei [Sanpei the Fisher Boy]," a comic adaptation directed by Takita, opened after "Departures," in March 2009, but was not an intended "topper" since it went into production in July 2008.)
Takita had his choice of projects, but finally opted to go with a sure domestic box-office bet: an adaptation of Tow Ubukata's novel "Tenchi Meisatsu (Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer)" about Harumi Shibukawa, a 17th-century math whiz best known today for devising a new, more accurate calendar.