{"id":670623,"date":"2026-10-31T06:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T06:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670623\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T06:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T06:50:09","slug":"keanu-reeves-hidari-wows-rrr-director-s-s-rajamouli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670623\/","title":{"rendered":"Keanu Reeves’ ‘Hidari’ Wows ‘RRR’ Director S.S. Rajamouli"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tKeanu Reeves<\/a> joined Japanese stop-motion feature \u201cHidari<\/a>\u201d after watching the project\u2019s pilot film, with his team getting back to the filmmakers about a week after the screening was arranged to set up a Zoom call, director Kawamura Masashi said at the Tokyo International Film Festival<\/a>, where he also updated the film\u2019s fundraising push.<\/p>\n

\n\tKawamura, who created, wrote and is directing \u201cHidari,\u201d appeared with co-director Ogawa Iku at a session reporting on Film Frontier, a talent development program backed by Japan\u2019s Agency for Cultural Affairs and run by festival organizer UniJapan. The program has paid for the team\u2019s travel to markets and industry events.<\/p>\n

\n\tReeves\u2019 casting as the lead voice was announced at Cannes in May, but Kawamura said the actor had seen the pilot before the festival.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were heavily influenced by Kurosawa\u2019s films, so when the puppet was being made, I asked for Mifune Toshiro and Keanu Reeves added together, divided by two and then aged,\u201d Kawamura said.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom then on, Kawamura kept Reeves at the top of his list for the lead voice. The film\u2019s producers took that seriously, found a way to reach the actor and arranged for him to watch the pilot.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAbout a week later we heard back, and it was, \u2018OK, let\u2019s do a Zoom,\u2019\u201d Kawamura said. \u201cI was thinking, so this is how fast things move these days. Then we got on the call and Keanu was there on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHidari\u201d has also caught the eye of \u201cRRR\u201d director S.S. Rajamouli<\/a>. Kawamura said he met the Indian filmmaker at Annecy, showed him \u201cHidari\u201d and ended up in a standing conversation of about 30 minutes about how the film was made.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe said, \u2018You\u2019re amazing. How did you make this?\u2019\u201d Kawamura said.<\/p>\n

\n\tKawamura said an encounter like that, with a director he would rarely cross paths with otherwise, could only happen at a festival. \u201cThere\u2019s the surprise inside the theater, and there are the connections after you walk out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe team shot the proof-of-concept short around three years ago, paying for it themselves with help from crowdfunding, and posted it on YouTube. It has since drawn about 5.3 million views and roughly 120,000 followers, many of them overseas, according to Kawamura.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWood carving, stop-motion and a period drama \u2013 it\u2019s a very austere project,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we\u2019d pitched it with just a written proposal, I don\u2019t think anyone would have understood it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Film Frontier support, the filmmakers pitched \u201cHidari\u201d at the Annecy Animation Showcase, part of the Cannes Film Market, carrying one of the hand-carved puppets with them. Kawamura said the puppet drew bigger crowds than its makers, and the Cannes platform put the film in front of live-action and action fans as well as distributors and agents.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cStop-motion is a really small world, and people tend to assume it\u2019s a narrow market,\u201d Kawamura said. \u201cBut even though it\u2019s stop-motion, we think of it as an action film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe budget is large, and the team is still out selling the project, seeking grants and partnerships with overseas distributors, Kawamura said. \u201cIn terms of speed, we\u2019re making it the indie way,\u201d he added. \u201cThanks to being light on our feet, I think the project has managed to make it across thin ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this month in Busan, Dwarf Studios producer Matsumoto Noriko said talks with a U.S. company that had offered to fund the entire budget, in exchange for all the rights, had stalled.<\/p>\n

\n\tOgawa, who works at stop-motion house Dwarf Studios, attended Annecy this year. He said the technique remains niche in commercial film and TV animation, but festival shorts and student sections are full of it, and studios from Europe, North America and beyond converge on Annecy. \u201cWhen I took the puppet along, it was hugely popular,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFilm Frontier, now in its third year, is part of the Agency for Cultural Affairs\u2019 Creator Support Fund, which backs creators for around three years, from project development through to overseas rollout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keanu Reeves joined Japanese stop-motion feature \u201cHidari\u201d after watching the project\u2019s pilot film, with his team getting back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,196727,61,60,6922,270,71384,8169],"class_list":["post-670623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-hidari","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-keanu-reeves","tag-movies","tag-s-s-rajamouli","tag-tokyo-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}