Jiro Asada won Japan's prestigious Naoki Prize for literature in 1997 for his novel "Poppoya," which was later made into a hit movie starring Ken Takakura. His followup, "Tengoku made no Hyaku Mairu (The One Hundred Miles to Heaven)," was published in the fall of 1998. Veteran TV director Katsumi Oyama read it when it first came out and immediately secured the rights.
Every TV network, including NHK, wanted to produce the drama. The director chose TV Tokyo on the assurance it could get popular actor Toshiyuki Nishida to take the lead role of Yasuo, an unsympathetic hero who loses his company, his money and his family, only to be redeemed when he sets out to help his ailing mother.
Another TV veteran, Toshihisa Matsubara, boiled the huge book down into a two-hour script, and Oyama decided to film the entire drama on location and with only one camera. Sadly, Matsubara, who died on Feb. 6, was never able to see the finished product, which airs Thursday, 9-11 p.m.