Ken Watanabe stars in "Shizumanu Taiyo"

[Tokyograph News]

The novel "Shizumanu Taiyo" is being turned into a big-budget film, starring Ken Watanabe. Directed by Setsuro Wakamatsu ("Whiteout"), the movie is said to cost 2 billion yen, with a running time of over three hours.

The original work was written by Toyoko Yamasaki during the 1990s. The story follows a man who served as the chair of an airline labor union (Watanabe), and is modeled after real-life events surrounding JAL and the Japan Airlines Flight 123 disaster in 1985.

A movie adaptation of the book was previously considered to be impossible - given its connection to existing people and companies, the airline industry refused to give its cooperation to a previous attempt in 2000 that was supposed to be a collaboration between Toei and Daiei (now Kadokawa Pictures). Even this version was announced by Kadokawa in 2006, but it never entered the filming stage.

However, it has now been decided that the project will still go through, but apparently without the help of the airline industry. The aircraft scenes will be shot through the use of a constructed set and computer-generated graphics.

Filming is scheduled to start in January in Iran. Other locations include Nairobi, New York, and Japan. Kadokawa plans to release the film in the fall of 2009.

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