Apr 25 (Japan Today) - Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, 59, will star in a Japanese remake of the 1993 movie “The Fugitive,†playing the part of the doctor wrongly accused of murdering his wife.
Warner Bros International Television Production and TV Asahi made the announcement Wednesday. The film is being made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of TV Asahi’s launch.
The film will closely follow the plot of the Hollywood film which starred Harrison Ford as Dr Richard Kimble, who is convicted of killing his wife. He escapes and tries to find the real killer, a man with a prosthetic arm, while being pursued by the authorities. That film was based on the hit 1960s U.S. TV series which ran from 1963 to 1967, and was also popular in Japan.
The Japanese version will have the same plot, but will be set just before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Watanabe plays Dr Kazuki Kakurai, an elite surgeon who is arrested and convicted for the murder of his wife. Sentenced to death, he escapes and tries to find the “one-armed man†to prove his innocence.
The film will be directed by Seiji Izumi and broadcast in two parts on two consecutive nights.
