Richard Gere appears in Hachiko remake Thursday 18th December, 05:35 AM JST

A new statue of the Hachiko dog will be installed in front of Fuji TV in
Odaiba next year, to celebrate their 50th anniversary of broadcasting and
coinciding with the Japan release of “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story” – a Hollywood
remake of the 1987 film “Hachiko Monogatari.”
The story of the Akita dog, who in the 1920s and 1930s waited for his master
at Shibuya station for nearly a decade after his death, was made into a movie
in 1987. “Hachiko Monogatari,” starring Tatsuya Nakadai, made more than 4
billion yen at theaters across Japan.
Richard Gere, 59, a reported dog-lover himself and star of the remake filmed
on Rhode Island this year, was confident of the film’s success, and said: “It
’s something I want my kids to see.” One critic wrote in an article on the
web edition of the Los Angeles Times that the movie could shape up as a
candidate for next year’s Oscars.
Chihiro Kameyama, head of movie production at Fuji TV, said they will
distribute the film together with Shochiku, and said: “We felt the dignified image
of Hachiko was an appropriate choice to help celebrate our 50th anniversary.
We decided against a temporary statue made of paper-mache or something, which
would only be there while the movie was showing, and instead opted for
something more real and permanent that can be loved and appreciated over a long
time.”
The new statue will be 88.8 centimeters tall, weigh 88.8 kilograms and
installed on May 12, 88 days before the movie’s release in Japan on Aug 8. The
statue is expected to become a famous meeting spot, similar to the one in
Shibuya.



Some of the comments annoyed the crap out of me. So naturally, I had to register and tell them what I thought. Heh.