Until We Meet Again, starring Snow Man's Meguro Ren and Hamabe Minami, leads the nominations for the 51st Hochi Film Awards with seven nods in seven categories.
Sports Hochi announced the nominees on November 9. The awards are known as the first major stop in Japan's film awards season, and the winners will be chosen by a selection committee and announced later this month. The ceremony is held every December.
Hamabe Minami and Meguro Ren in Until We Meet Again (Image via TMDB)
A close race
Last year was dominated by the mega-hit National Treasure, which earned more than 20.8 billion yen (about $131 million) and became the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film ever. This year, Sports Hochi describes the race as wide open.
Until We Meet Again, directed by Miki Takahiro, follows a woman interning at a funeral company (Hamabe Minami) and a funeral planner (Meguro Ren) who team up to create the ideal funeral. It earned 4.7 billion yen (about $30 million) at the box office and won five categories in the readers' vote, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress. Meguro Ren is nominated for Best Actor, Hamabe Minami for Best Actress, Harada Taizo for Best Supporting Actor, Nagasaku Hiromi for Best Supporting Actress and Kubo Shiori for Best Newcomer.
Hakucho to Komori (directed by Kishi Yoshiyuki) and You, Like a Star (directed by Fujii Michihito) follow with seven nominations in six categories each, and Godzilla Minus Zero (directed by Yamazaki Takashi) earned seven nominations across five categories. All three leading films feature a male and female lead pairing: Meguro Ren and Hamabe Minami, Matsumura Hokuto and Imada Mio, and Yokohama Ryusei and Hirose Suzu.
Hamabe Minami is nominated twice, for Best Actress and for Best Supporting Actress in Godzilla Minus Zero. Matsumura Hokuto of SixTONES is also up twice, for Best Actor (Hakucho to Komori) and Best Supporting Actor (You, Like a Star).
Best Actor nominees
- Ikematsu Sosuke, The Night Before the War
- Isomura Hayato, Mentor
- Ichinose Wataru, April's Margins
- Emoto Tasuku, Samurai Vengeance
- Oda Yuji, Bayside Shakedown NEW
- Kamiki Ryunosuke, Godzilla Minus Zero
- Sakaguchi Kentaro, I Don't Know You
- Nakamura Tomoya, Your Quiz
- Nishijima Hidetoshi, Sometimes I Confess
- Matsumura Hokuto, Hakucho to Komori
- Meguro Ren, Until We Meet Again (readers' vote winner)
- Motoki Masahiro, Black Prison
- Yokohama Ryusei, You, Like a Star
Best Actress nominees
- Ayase Haruka, Why Do People Write Love Letters? and Sheep in a Box
- Imada Mio, Hakucho to Komori
- Okamoto Tao, Suddenly Feeling Unwell
- Katayama Yuki, FUJIKO
- Kawaguchi Haruna, My Life Diary
- Kishii Yukino, All the Lovers in the Night
- Koyae Aoi, Children I Don't Know
- Nikaido Fumi, Children I Don't Know
- Non, Parallel and Perpendicular
- Hamabe Minami, Until We Meet Again (readers' vote winner)
- Hirose Suzu, You, Like a Star
- Matsuoka Mayu, Male Friend
- Matsu Takako, Nagi Diary
Other highlights
Best Director nominees include Kore-eda Hirokazu, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Kurosawa Kiyoshi. In the supporting categories, nominees include Snow Man's Sakuma Daisuke (readers' vote winner), Suda Masaki, Hasegawa Hiroki, Kudo Kankuro, Nagasawa Masami and Harada Mieko, who is the only person in the awards' 50-year history to win in three different categories. Nagao Kento of Samurai Vengeance is nominated for both Best Supporting Actor and Best Newcomer, as is Koyae Aoi for Best Actress and Best Newcomer.
The readers' vote picks for Best International Film and Best Animated Film were The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island, which earned more than 18 billion yen (about $114 million).
