It is the first Japanese film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars
Drive My Car made history as the first-ever Japanese film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, becoming one of only a dozen foreign-language films to have leapt categories for the award show’s top prize. The last foreign film to have achieved this feat was Bong Joon-ho’s South Korean thriller Parasite, which won the award in 2020. Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who was crowned Best Director by The National Society of Film Critics for this film, Drive My Car was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director at the 94th Oscars and International Feature Film, the highest number of nominations scored by a Japanese film. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
It is adapted from Haruki Murakami’s 2014 short story
Drive My Car is adapted from an eponymous short story by acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami, taken from his 2014 collection Men Without Women. In the story, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, is invited to direct a production in Hiroshima two years after losing his wife to a brain haemorrhage. His grief still haunts him, compounded by the discovery of his wife’s infidelity shortly before her death and his failure to confront his wife about her affair.
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As its name suggests, the three-hour film explores the budding relationship between the widower and the person he hired to drive his car to Hiroshima: Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a 20-year-old who lost her mum in a landslide and who, in coming to terms with the truth of her loved one’s death, also helps Kafuku truly heal from his spouse’s unexpected passing.
It counts awards from Cannes, the BAFTAs and Golden Globes among its accolades
July 11, 2021 (L-R) Toko Miura, Reika Kirishima, director Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Sonia Yuan attend the "Drive My Car" screening during the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France
Photo: Pascal Le Segretain via Getty Images
July 17, 2021 Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi accepts the Best Screenplay Award for Drive My Car at the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France
Photo: Andreas Rentz via Getty Images
Before being nominated for the Oscars, Drive My Car has already made its mark on the global awards stage. Notable accolades include winning Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTAs, Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language at the Golden Globes, and sweeping three awards at Cannes: the FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and Best Screenplay, with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi and co-screenwriter Takamaase Oe being the first Japanese people to take the award home.
Male lead Hidetoshi Nishijima is a Giorgio Armani ambassador
May 24, 2019 Hidetoshi Nishijima attends the Giorgio Armani 2020 Cruise Collection photocall at the Tokyo National Museum
Photo: Jun Sato/WireImage via Getty Images
Since his acting debut in 1992, Hidetoshi Nishijima has starred in an array of Japanese films across different genres, including Dolls (2002), Cut (2011) and Samurai’s Promise (2018), which earned him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 42nd Japan Academy Film Prize. In 2017, he was tapped by Giorgio Armani to model in their Made to Measure campaign, making him the first Japanese to do so.
Female lead Toko Miura was the theme song vocalist for global-hit animation Weathering With You
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Before playing Misaki Watari in Drive My Car, Toko Miura has shown off her multifaceted youthful charms in the Japanese coming-of-age comedy One Huff and Puff Journey (2015) as well as other drama series such as Spaghetti Code Love (2021), Romance Doll (2020), Fictitious OL Diary (2020) and more. Unbeknownst to many, Miura was also the female voice in the theme song of Japanese animated romantic fantasy film Weathering With You, which took global cinemas by storm in 2019. After a one year search, Miura was cast as the female vocalist after touching the heart of film director Makoto Shinkai and Yojiro Noda of RADWIMPS, the band behind the theme song.
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Lead Image: @cinesescsp via Instagram
