Takakura has completed another film that opened the Tokyo International Film Festival last month. "It's called 'Ah-Un,' for the sound of exhaling and inhaling," explained Takakura. "The shrine dogs that face each other are called 'Ah' and 'Un,' and it's an expression meaning one can't do without the other, and the film is about two men who are close buddies. My friend is played by Bando Eiji, who was a baseball star and is a sports commentator. The trouble is that I am in love with his wife."
Nobuko Miyamoto, that "Taxing Woman," plays Takakura's wife, and Junko Fuji has come out of a 17-year retirement to play Eiji's wife. Fuji had been Takakura's frequent leading lady at Toei, the company to which he was under contract from 1955 to 1967 and where he had risen to stardom as the Japanese cinema's No. 1 yakuza (or gangster).
