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2nd Ōoku Film's Teaser Centers on Female Shogun's Harem Member

Japanese production company Asmik-Ace Entertainment streamed a 30-second teaser trailer for the Ōoku: Eien Emonnosuke-Tsunayoshi Hen live-action film last Wednesday.

The film adapts volumes 4 to 6 of the award-winning Ōoku: The Inner Chambers manga by Fumi Yoshinaga. The story take place in an alternate-history version of medieval Japan, in which a bizarre disease has dwindled the male population. This has led to a matriarchal society where women outnumber men by 4 to 1. The shogun and de facto ruler of Japan keeps her own harem of men, or Ōoku.

The film casts Masato Sakai (Honey and Clover's Shūji, Buddha: The Great Departure, Aoi Bungaku Series) as the Ōoku member Emonnosuke and Miho Kanno as the fifth female shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (family name first). Fuminori Kaneko (Kisarazu Cat's Eye, Ikebukuro West Gate Park) is directing and Minako Kamiyama is handling the scripts. The film will open on December 22.

The teaser notes that another live-action adaptation, the Ōoku: Tanjō Arikoto-Iemitsu Hen television series, will premiere this October as an adaptation of the manga's volumes 2 to 4. In the show, Sakai will play a different character named Arikoto, a monk who became an Ōoku member. Mikako Tabe (Kimi ni Todoke's Sawako) will play the third female shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu. Kaneko and Kamiyama are working on the television series as well as on the December film.

An earlier 2010 film adaptation starred Arashi J-pop group member Kazunari Ninomiya (Tekkonkinkreet, Letters From Iwo Jima) and singer/actress Kou Shibasaki (Battle Royale, Dororo, Sekai no Chūshin de, Ai wo Sakebu) as Shogun Yoshimune. Viz Media published the seventh volume of the manga in North America last month. The manga won the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and it also won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009.