I was once an extra for film being shot in the dead of winter in Nagano Prefecture, playing a member of a media pack running down a snow-covered slope to an ambulance. To stand out, I kept a step behind the others through retake after frigid retake. Naturally, I was edited out.
So, I could sympathize with the elderly star of “Extro,” Naoki Murahashi’s film about extras who labor long hours for little recognition and low or no pay. A former dental technician and part-time farmer in Ibaraki Prefecture, Kozo Haginoya (Kozo Haginoya) is dedicated to his new profession, rising at four in the morning to make a morning shoot at Warp Station Edo, a permanent set for period dramas.
But Haginoya also refuses to shave his beard to play an Edo (old Tokyo) townsman, despite a harried assistant director’s repeated requests. (They reach a compromise: Haginoya keeps the beard, but plays a farmer, a class not subject to Edo’s rules on facial hair.)