The closing ceremony of the Middle East Film Festival is a glam affair, starry as the desert sky. But, as the cameras flash across the red carpet, capturing Orlando Bloom and Eva Mendes in all their glory, one figure stands aside, happy to go unnoticed. His name is Joe Odagiri, and in his native Japan, he’s a megastar.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it,’ says the actor, watching his current co-star Maggie Q lap up the photographers’ attention. ‘They’re pretty bad in Japan, the paparazzi – I guess they’re the same everywhere. But all this,’ he says, gesturing to the scene around him, unused to observing it from the sidelines, ‘It’s really amazing.’
Joe fell into acting following a fateful mistake. Heading abroad to study film making in California, he put his name on the wrong list and found himself enrolled in drama classes instead. Making the most of his situation, he completed his course and returned to Japan, quickly finding his way to a starring role in Kamen Rider, a manga-based TV series that did very well in the late ’90s. He’s been a household name ever since.
He is here to promote The Warrior and the Wolf, a film directed by celebrated Chinese auteur, Tian Zhuang Zhuang. He plays a gentle shepherd, skilled in the art of war but conflicted about killing. Years of battle eventually take their toll and, when he finds himself trapped in a mysterious village by a raging snowstorm, he violently rapes a young widow and his descent into depravity is complete. It’s neither easy to watch or to follow, the director dancing about the storyline like a frisky acrobat.
While Joe is pleased with the film, he is most concerned with how it’ll be received back home. ‘That’s the difficult question, isn’t it?’ he ponders. ‘It’s a Japanese story, but it’s not really a well-known one. I think the film will bring the book to a lot of people, and the audience may take it as the latest in a series by the producer, Bill Kong. I can imagine some people will think like that. But, no, I can’t really imagine what’s coming.’
As the film festival’s credits roll, we head for the aftershow party. In the corner of the garden sits Eva Mendes. Orlando Bloom is loitering in another corner, and Naomi Watts has gone to bed early. Nobody bothers Joe, and he’s totally unphased by the glitteratti around him. Maggie Q holds court next to him, telling anyone who will listen that the world is heading to hell in a handbag. Joe seems immune, digging into the biggest shrimp he’s ever seen. It’s a good life, isn’t it Joe? ‘Amazing,’ he smiles, and I’m not sure if he’s talking about crustacean or creation. ‘Really amazing.’
