Let's enjoy the "aggressive" work starring Tori Matsuzaka. 10 recommended movies!

Recommended movies starring Tori Matsuzaka (2019)

8. "Inemuri Iwane" (19) Director: Motoki Katsuhide 121 minutes

If "Call Boy" is about stillness and "The Blood of Wolves" is about movement, then this film is a "masterful work" with a neutral sense of balance. He plays a gentle role as a ronin who gets caught up in a conspiracy and carries the burden of a sin that will never go away.

He is usually a gentle and gentle man, but once he enters the battlefield, he transforms into a resolute swordsman, playing the role of a "hero" perfectly and entertaining with his magnificent sword fighting. It may be said that this was a scene where the highlight of the action scenes, which was a long time coming for Matsuzaka, was clearly prepared.

This is a film filled with Matsuzaka's weapons, such as the beauty of his posture and behavior, and the sexiness he shows not just in points but in his movements, which he also showed in "Call Boy". His voice has also been subtly changed to a "period drama version," making it clear that he was chosen for the role.

From 2018 to 2019, he actively appeared in dramas. In the live-action version of "In This Corner of the World" (2018), he played the heroine's husband, in the drama version of "Perfect World" (2019), he played a man with a paraplegic body, and then in the historical drama "Idaten: Tokyo Olympic Banashi" (2019).

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9. The Journalist(2019) Director: Michihito Fujii 113 minutes

Matsuzaka, who won the Japan Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "The Blood of Wolves," achieved the feat of winning the Best Actor award the following year in this film. The film miraculously balances the exceptional visual sense of talented director Michihito Fujii with a socially sensitive story that incorporates real-time events happening in Japan.

In this film, Matsuzaka plays a bureaucrat from the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office who secretly works to control all information. After a respected senior bureaucrat commits suicide, he begins to question the organization and risks his own life to provide information to The Journalist(Shim Eun-kyung). This is a very difficult role to play.

Matsuzaka's craftsmanship is at the level of a master, as he meticulously expresses the inner conflict between justice, beliefs, and duty in an extreme situation where he is at risk of being crushed by enormous power, not through words but through the slightest movement of his eyes and the tension that resides in a blink of an eye.

Also worth reading: Cutting through reality in the context of fiction - The "youthful sensibility" that "The Journalist" brought to socially conscious films

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10. "Honeybees and Distant Thunder" (19) Director: Kei Ishikawa 119 minutes

This film adaptation of the bestselling novel, which won both the Naoki Prize and the Booksellers' Award, stars Matsuoka Mayu. It is an imaginative tale of the struggles of performers taking on the challenge of a piano competition.

The competition is crowded with a wide variety of pianists, including a former genius girl who had disappeared from the public eye for seven years, a boy with The Natural born "extraordinary talent," and a hard worker who boasts world-class accuracy. Matsuzaka plays a man who is "in a different world from geniuses." He is married with children, works hard at piano on the side, and puts everything on the line in his "final struggle" just before the age limit.

Matsuzaka plays a very human character with great empathy, who acknowledges his lack of talent but shows the determination to compete with "music for the everyday person," yet still reveals an intense hunger and inferiority complex about what he "doesn't have."

Not only the piano playing scene, which gives a glimpse of the effort that went into it, but also the "process of emotions being expressed" shown in the interview scene in the film will give you goosebumps.

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Matsuzaka is known for his acting skills, but he is also known for his interesting choice of projects. His upcoming works include the live-action film "Whisper of the Heart" and "Anokoro.", which tells the story of a man who devotes his youth to an idol belonging to Hello! Project.

He is a genuine movie fan who loves movies from all over the world, including "GONIN" (1995), " Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri " (2017), and " Argo " (2012). Matsuzaka's passion for movies is fully conveyed in the "Recommended Movies" video recently posted on YouTube.

Despite being a flag bearer of Japanese cinema, he is a "lovable actor" who is simply and purely fascinated by movies, without ever being cynical or defensive. The charm of the "person" Tori Matsuzaka is also infinite and difficult to describe in a single word.

Text: SYO

Born in 1987. After The Graduate from Tokyo Gakugei University, he worked at a film magazine editorial production site and a film information site before becoming a film writer/editor. Works on a wide range of topics including interviews, reviews, columns, event appearances, and recommendation comments. Contributed to ``CINEMORE'', ``FRIDAY Digital'', ``Fan's Voice'', ``Eiga.com'', ``Cinema Cafe'', ``BRUTUS'', ``DVD & Video Distribution'', etc. Twitter「 syocinema 」