Japanese contenders have come away empty handed from this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Koreeda Hirokazu’s “Kuki Ningyo” (Air Doll), about a video store clerk falling for an inflatable female doll, was shown in the Un Certain Regard category but failed to take the prize. There were no Japanese entries this year in the main competition category. But “Map of the Sounds of Tokyo,” a Spanish film directed by Isabel Coixet and starring Sergi Lopez (photo left) and Kikuchi Rinko (photo right), got a rapturous response from the audience when it was shown at the main theater on Saturday. Kikuchi, at Cannes for the first time since the release of “Babel” in 2006, was in tears as the film got a 5-minute standing ovation. “I was cool watching it part way through, but memories of the filming started coming back to me. It was a tough movie for me.” Set in Tokyo, the movie features both English and Japanese dialog. Kikuchi plays a fish market worker who’s an assassin on the side.
• Management for Miyazawa Rie (36) announced on Saturday that the actress gave birth to her first child last week. She had the bouncing baby girl at a hospital in Tokyo, though the media had speculated the birth would happen in Hawaii. Miyazawa announced her engagement and pregnancy back in February and she married a former professional surfer, who is based in the Aloha State, on April 2.
• The opening episode of “Mr. Brain” pulled in a respectable audience rating of 24.8% on Saturday. The TBS drama series drew high expectations with hit maker Kimura Takuya in the lead role of a forensics researcher. The series boats an all-star cast, with appearances from the likes of kabuki star Ichikawa Ebizo, actress Hirosue Ryoko and musician Gackt.
• On Saturday, Japanese wadaiko group Kodo performed with the prestigious Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome for an audience of about 2,500. Seven members of the group joined the 80-member orchestra in performing Monoprism, composed by the late Ishii Maki. The seven wore the group’s distinctive traditional happi coats and hachimaki headbands. The popular group, based on the island of Sadogashima, tour around the world for several months every year. Since their debut in 1981, they have performed about 3,200 overseas concerts in 46 countries.