Man on Film: Norwegian Wood is Coming! Norwegian Wood is Coming!

All right, so this is sort of filler*, but it's something I'm excited about nonetheless. 

*I am working on some other stuff (write-up of a Grace Kelly bio and a Henning Mankell book, for starters), and hot stove has reinvigorated Royalscentricity a bit.  Don't worry, the actual start of baseball season will surely kill off any energy I have for the Royals...

Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood has been adapted by Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung. While reviews have been lukewarm--anything less would be surprising given the reverence of the source material--it is apparently blessed with stunning cinematography.

Perhaps more importantly, the beautiful Rinko Kikuchi plays Naoko, and her performance has been lauded.  Known to most of us for her turns in Babel and The Brothers Bloom, Naoko provides her with a rich character to embody, serving as a long overdue follow-up to her Oscar-nominated turn as Chieko Wataya in Babel.

As if Rinko Kikuchi were not enough, Jonny Greenwood has apparently composed the score.  Given his phenomenal score for There Will Be Blood, I am curious as to what he has done for this one.  

I am kind of excited, as Murakami is one of my favorite authors, and the book was great.

The trailer that follows is not the highest quality that I could find, but it did have subtitles.

The release date in the US has to be announced, but the UK date is March 18th.  Hopefully the US date is right around then, too.