Dean Fujioka and Shinichi Nishioka Participate in Press Conference Promoting their New Movie

On June 20th, the actor Dean Fujioka and director Shinichi Nishioka participated in a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan to promote their new movie, Kekkon (which means marriage).  Kekkon is a movie where a a con man, Kenji Urumi, deceives women by promising that he would marry them, get money from them and then disappear.  The movie is based on the novel with the same title by Areno Inoue, who is a Naoki Award winner novelist.  In the beginning of the press conference, Fujioka greeted his audience in English fluently, “Thank you for having me here. Good evening, everyone. I’m going blind (due to the intense flashes of many cameras). You guys are amazing.”

Fujioka is an international actor who worked in Hong Kong and Taiwan before his break in Japan in 2015 due to his performance in the drama series, Asa ga Kita which was directed by Shinichi Nishioka.  In addition to Japanese, he speaks Mandarin and English too. He holds an associated degree in IT from a community college in Seattle.  In addition to his international background, he is also known for his beautifully chiseled face, akin to a piece of art. His skills are versatile, seeing as he wrote and composed the theme song, “Permanent Vacation” for the movie. He is able to ride horseback, and in the music clip of the song, he is seen doing horseback riding on the beach.  When asked if he played the piano in the movie, he answered, “Yes. I did,” in English.  Regarding the personality of the leading character, the con man, Fujioka stated that he ended up deceiving women “because he was abandoned. He was not able to build a proper relationship with a mother or female figure.” In regards to a question about what is marriage, he stated that “home is where your heart belongs.” He married an Indonesian woman in 2012 and he has three daughters with her. His home, where his wife and children live is located in Indonesia, so maybe what Fujioka meant was that he cannot visit his home, due to his jobs in Japan, but his heart always belongs to his home in Indonesia. To the same question, Nishioka answered that marriage is healing for him. Dean urged Nishioka to talk about his marriage, to which Nishioka stated that he had married more than once before, and as a result, he formed the opinion that marriage is healing. Fujioka stated, “it’s pretty convincing, right?” in English.  As for the quality of the movie, Fujioka stated  “ I’m happy with the outcome.” The movie came out on June 24th.

Below are the titles of the youtube videos of the press conference.

おディーンさまの英語がカッコよすぎる！ 主演映画『結婚』会見

【記者を魅了】ディーン・フジオカ 得意の英語

ディーン・フジオカ、英語力が活きる会見　通訳助ける

FCCJの会見

Official Website of the Movie kekkon-movie.jp