Hana Yori Mo Naho ☆ Flower

Curious facts 

Did you know that..

• Director and screenwriter Hirokazu Koreeda is wellknown for his award-winning dramas After Life

  and Nobody Knows.

• Paralleling main Soza's story throughout the film is Koreeda's take on the 47 Ronin (Chushingura), the subjects of arguably one of the greatest samurai stories of all time.

• The historic basis for the narrative begins in 1701. Lord of the provincial Ako domain (in present-day Hyogo Prefecture, central Japan) was placed in charge of ceremonial duties at the shogun's castle in Edo (present-day Tokyo). He sought instruction from the master of ceremonial duties, Kira Yoshinaka but, naively, failed to offer the usual bribe. Kira humiliated Asano to the extent that the latter drew his sword and inflicted a slight wound on Kira. The penalty for drawing a sword in the shogun's castle was strict: Asano was sentenced to commit seppuku, but Kira went without punishment. The shogunate confiscated Asano's lands (the han of Ako) and dismissed the samurai who had served him, making them ronin.
  
  Asano's retainers decided to avenge their master's death and adopted a strategy that culminated in a raid on Kira's mansion eighteen months later. They decapitated Kira and then paraded through the streets of Edo to the grave of their master at Sengakuji Temple where they placed the severed head on Asano's grave. The shogun could not permit the retainers to go unpunished because the vengeance represented a choice between loyalty to a vassal lord versus that to the supreme ruler, the shogun. The retainers were ordered to commit suicide and complied.
  
  The general public, however, was far more sympathetic to the burning idealism of the ronin, whom they called "gishi" ("virtuous samurai"), and their death sentences were merely the tragic element that made their story one that would never die.

• Portrayal of the 47 ronin in the film is satirical. Koreeda commented that people of his generation have grown up watching the Chushingura in one form or another and it is played every year in mid-December when the actual events are said to have taken place. It is always portrayed as heroic, embodying the bushido or warrior spirit. Hana is his take on the story with some comedic points of view thrown in.

• The full name of the film in Japanese "Hana Yori mo Naho" is a line from the death poem that the lord who was forced to kill himself, in the story of the 47 ronin, writes before his death, regretting that he had not been able to avenge his enemy before his death.

• Hana also means 'flower' in Japanese. Historically, the cherry blossom has been a metaphor for the bravery of a warrior, seeking his own death. Koreeda wanted to revise or update the metaphor to have a different take on it.

• Koreeda was asked if he was influenced by Akira Kurosawa, especially Dodesukaden. He said he loved that film, as well as The Lower Depths, that portrays a group of people who live in abject poverty. He told his actors to portray the people from The Lower Depths, but in a Dodesukaden kind of more upbeat way.

• Akira Kurosawa's daughter actually designed the costumes for Hana.

• When asked if there were any difficulties in shooting a period film, Koreeda replied that he had to get used to the time required to fit all the wigs. Also, most of his previous films were shot on 16 mm film using available light, whereas here he had to wait for lighting crews to set the lighting. He joked that with all the waiting time he ate candy and gained weight as a result.

• Okada Junichi who played main role was nominated for Blue Ribbon Award in category Best Actor, but he declined the nomination, cause of his agency Johnny's Jimusho, which declared that their actors doesn't need to compete with the other nominees".
  Okada Junichi is also popular singer (member of pop-group V6) and TV-dramas actor in Japan.