We recently reported that Tran Anh Hung (“Cyclo,” “The Scent Of Green Papaya”) has acquired the rights to The Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood” for his adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s best-selling novel of the same name. And he’s already putting it to good use.
The first teaser for the upcoming film has landed, and while it offers only the barest of footage in its just thirty second plus runtime, what is there is quite lovely. The flashback-heavy, coming-of-age story centers on student Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) and his relationship with two women: the beautiful but fragile Naoko (“Babel” actress Rinko Kikuchi) and lively, outgoing Midori (Kiko Mizuhara). The spot only offers a few glimpses at what are mostly landscape heavy scenes, but we like the nostalgic, quiet quality of the footage and are becoming more intrigued by this one with each new glimpse.
The film will also feature original music written by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood based on a composition called “Dogwood” which he recently wrote for the BBC Concert Orchestra. The film doesn’t have a North American distributor just yet, but should likely appear in the fall festival circuit.