Winning the Academy Award must have had a huge impact on the films box office receipts in Japan?
It had a very sizeable Japanese audience before the Academy Award but the box office has more than doubled [to over $60 million] after the Academy Award, yet there’s a part of me that wishes it wouldn’t take an Academy Award for it to get that big. MM: The other phenomenon is that in Japan, the DVD release date had already been set in anticipation of a certain kind of theatrical run. But because of the Academy Award, the theaters continued to remain packed even though the DVD was already out, so that’s very unusual. Also, we’re starting to see people coming, especially older people who haven’t been to a movie theater in 30, or 40 years. So we’re really finding a fresh, new audience. Q: You both have very unique backgrounds, and have followed somewhat unconventional paths to the Oscar. Motoki, you started out in a boy band in Japan. And Takita, you were directing pink films [softcore porn] in Japan. How surreal that must have felt, having reached the pinnacle of your profession by going
