Interviewing Seizo Fukumoto, the star of Ken Ochiai's backstage drama "Uzumasa Limelight," I wished I had brought a video camera, instead of my voice recorder and notepad. As he talks, this veteran kirare-yaku — an actor whose forte is being cut down with a sword in jidaigeki (samurai period dramas) — illustrates his points with sharp hand movements and sound effects, (with the sound of a body hitting the tatami being a loud "Ban!"). It was as though miniature sword fights were unfolding during the interview.
Actors talk about internalizing their roles, but 71-year-old Fukumoto, famed as "the man who has been killed 50,000 times," lives his role out through every word and gesture in his daily life.
In "Uzumasa Limelight" he plays an elderly kirare-yaku named Kamiyama, facing the end of his career as the title Uzumasa Studio in Kyoto — a real production studio that has been making period dramas for decades — abandons its declining signature genre. A ray of hope appears in the form of Satsuki (real-life martial arts champion Chihiro Yamamoto), a young actress who is handy with a sword. She becomes Kamiyama's apprentice, seeking to polish her technique but not knowing if she will ever use it again on the screen.