Ken Watanabe linked with Fukushima film

Ken Watanabe. Image: AFP/Timothy A. Clary

Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, known for his turns in “Inception”, and the “Godzilla” and “Transformers” movies, is to lead “Fukushima 50”, a film about the nuclear reactor battered by 2011’s tsunami.

Ken Watanabe is to play Masao Yoshida, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant supervisor during the aftermath of an earthquake and resultant tsunami that crashed into northeast Japan in March 2011.

In ignoring his superiors’ orders and continuing to pump seawater into overheating nuclear reactors, Yoshida is credited with preventing an even greater disaster.

Some 50 employees stayed behind in order to stabilize the Fukushima power plant after its evacuation, Yoshida being one of them.

Over the following weeks they were joined by hundreds of other workers assisting in the effort.

Filming on the project begins towards the end of November, with an eventual release date for “Fukushima 50” envisioned for 2020.

Setsuro Wakamatsu, who directed Watanabe in 2009 aviation crash drama “The Unbroken”, is to helm. JB

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