Kazuya Kamenashi to star in spy movie “Joker Game”

Kazuya Kamenashi (KAT-TUN) is set to star in Yu Irie’s upcoming film Joker Game, playing a genius spy named Kato.
In addition, it’s been announced that Kamenashi Kyoko Fukada will play the American Ambassador’s lover, a mysterious woman named Rin, and Yusuke Iseya will play a man named Colonel Yuuki who takes command of the secret intelligence agency “D Kikan”.
Not to be confused with the 2012 teen survival thriller starring Rie Kitahara, this Joker Game is actually based on the first in a spy story compilation novel by Koji Yanagi with illustrations by Yoshinatsu Mori. In 2009, the novel won the 30th Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers and the 62nd Mystery Writers of Japan Award. The novel’s two sequels, Double Joker and Paradise Lost, were also popular, having reached a total circulation of over 700,000 copies to date.
The film is set in a fictional international Asian city on the eve of World War II as spies from countries such as Japan, the UK, the Soviet Union, and Germany engage in a “spy game”, using every trick and plot they can think of to gain the upper hand in the secret intelligence battle.
Kamenashi’s character Kato is about to receive a severe punishment for disobeying his superiors when he’s scouted by Yuuki to become a spy for D Kikan. He endures rigorous training and is eventually given his first mission as a secret agent. Kato must infiltrate the multicultural city referred to “Devil’s Metropolis” in order to take a critical “black notebook” from U.S. Ambassador Graham.
The film depicts Kato’s attempts to find the notebook along with a mysterious woman named Rin. Meanwhile, D Kikan gets caught up in a fierce rivalry with a radical faction of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Due to the international nature of the films theme, it will be shot in a wide array of locations including three separate areas of Japan, a large open-air set on the island of Batam, Indonesia, and Singapore.
Filming of “Joker Game” began on January 4. A release is planned for sometime in 2015.