Japanese thriller Baka’s Identity was inspired by a desire to “depict young people in poverty in modern Japan,” says producer Akira Morii. The film, directed by Koto Nagata, received its world premiere in Competition at this year’s Busan International Film Festival.
“The Japanese media rarely covers the growing number of young people who grow up without proper education and end up participating in crime just to survive,” says Morii. “We created the film with the hope that more people would take an interest in these young people.”
Nagata and Morii found the perfect vehicle for their story in a 2019 novel by Jun Nishio, which told the story of youth on the edge in Tokyo’s infamous Kabukicho red light district. The group pose as young women online to scam men out of their identity papers, which can be sold for a high price to those looking to disappear and start a new life.
To adapt the sprawling novel for the screen, Nagata and screenwriter Kosuke Mukai – winner of the Japan Academy award for A Man in 2023 – decided to pare down its vast number of interconnected characters to focus on the three reluctant scammers played by Ayano Go, Takumi Kitamura and Yuta Hayashi.
“When Mukai first looked at the source material, he felt it was too convoluted to adapt into a film,” says Nagata. “When I told him my plan to focus on just three characters, his eyes lit up.”
Veteran actor Go, known for films like Shinjuku Swan and Sham, and Kitamura, who starred in The Seven’s Yu Yu Hakusho, were deemed perfect for the roles by both Morii and Nagata – independently of one another – “a sure sign that we were on the same wavelength,” says Nagata. Meanwhile, relative newcomer Yuta Hayashi, seen recently in Neo Sora’s Happyend, was chosen via audition.
“During the audition, everyone on the production committee thought, ‘It’s got to be him,’” says Morii.
“I have just the thing”
The film was produced by The Seven, a production company founded by TBS Holdings in 2021 that has produced series like Alice in Borderland and Yu Yu Hakusho for Netflix. Baka’s Identity marks the first film for the company, but Morii, COO and producer at The Seven, says: “We don’t consider ourselves ‘TV producers’ so much as producers of large-scale TV series, helmed by film directors and staff members.”
Nagata, who once worked as assistant director to Shunji Iwai, shares that she and Morii have been acquainted since their 20s, when both were climbing the ladder of the Japanese film industry.
“Whenever we ran into each other, we talked about doing something together as director and producer,” she says. “When I heard he’d joined The Seven, I went to pitch him on some projects right away. When he told me he wanted to do a story about youth in Kabukicho, I said, ‘Wait, I have just the thing for you.’”
Aside from Nishio’s source novel, the team conducted interviews with young people who had done the kind of illegal part-time jobs seen in the film, learning their “language and jargon and incorporating it into the script,” says Morii.
The film was shot largely on location in Kabukicho, a nightlife district in Tokyo that has undergone some gentrification in recent years but is still known for its seedy side. Shooting in the area was organised with help from Tokyo’s film commission. But that wasn’t always the case, says Nagata.
“Back in the old says, when shooting in Kabukicho, you used to have to go pay respects to the local mob bosses,” the director recalls. “But these days, things are done officially.”
Though the film features plenty of fights, chases and suspense, Nagata says she worked hard to hold on to its quieter scenes.
“I didn’t want the film to devolve into a mere suspense thriller,” says Nagata. “Equally, if not more important, is the way the characters are feeling, and the tension that builds between them.”
“We want audiences to consider whether it is truly the fault of those young people who have known only hardship that they end up committing crimes just to survive,” adds Morii.
Nagata is working on several potential projects, including the story of three generations of women tentatively titled Granny’s Secret Journey that she will pitch at Taipei’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion platform in November. Baka’s Identity is also headed to Taipei, selected to play at the Golden Horse Film Festival, which runs November 6-23.
AloJapan.com