Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has spent a career steeped in high drama but on Saturday the Japanese star revealed he had now realised a childhood dream by working for the first time in animation. "I grew up watching Astro Boy," said Sakamoto, referring to the cartoon crime
Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has spent a career steeped in high drama but on Saturday the Japanese star revealed he had now realised a childhood dream by working for the first time in animation.
“I grew up watching Astro Boy,” said Sakamoto, referring to the cartoon crime fighter. “So I have a great respect for this world.”
The 66-year-old Sakamoto first won widespread acclaim for his seminal work on the score for the gritty David Bowie-starring drama “Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence” (1983) before he won an Oscar for the Bernardo Bertolucci-directed period epic “The Last Emperor” in 1987.
Sakamoto has arrived at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival to promote Japanese animation ace Kobun Shizuno’s fantastical “My Tyrano: Together, Forever”, with the film having its world premiere on Saturday night.
“My Tyrano” is lifted from the pages of Japanese picture-book author Miyanishi Tatsuya’s successful Tyrannosaurus series, and is set around an unlikely friendship that forms between two beasts.
Sakamoto picked up the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award at the festival’s opening on Friday night for his work on movie soundtracks.
He said he was attracted to the themes of tolerance and friendship in “My Tyrano”, and hoped Asian politics would follow a similar route.
