All posts tagged: Shogun

‘Shogun’ Adds Five More Actors to Season 2 Cast

‘Shogun’ Adds Five More Actors to Season 2 Cast

Published by Daniella Wilson

As production on season two of Shōgun ramps up, the Emmy-winning drama is adding more actors to its cast. Risei Kukihara, Ryô Satô, Seishiro Nishida, Mantaro Koichi and Takashi Yamaguchi have joined the ensemble for season two of the FX series, which is filming in Vancouver for a likely premiere sometime in 2027. Details of who the actors will play are being kept quiet, save for character names: Gabriel (Kukihara), Rin (Satô), Jōshin (Nishida), Saitō (Koichi) and Kanō (Yamaguchi). Hiroyuki Sanada and Cosmo Jarvis will reprise their roles in season two, which is set more than a decade after the events of the first season. Fumi Nikaidô, Shinnosuke Abe, Hiroto Kanai, Yoriko Dôguchi, Tommy Bastow, Yuko Miyamoto, Eita Okuno and Yuka Kouri will also return. FX officially renewed the series in April 2025 and has subsequently cast Asami Mizukawa, Masataka Kubota, Sho Kaneta, Takaaki Enoki, Jun Kunimura and Ren Meguro. Of the five new additions to the cast, Yamaguchi is probably best known to U.S. audiences, having appeared in Letters From Iwo Jima, Apple TV’s …

‘Monarch,’ ‘Shōgun’ Season 2 and Playing Yoko Ono

‘Monarch,’ ‘Shōgun’ Season 2 and Playing Yoko Ono

Published by Daniella Wilson

[This story contains spoilers from Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season two’s second episode, “Resonance.”] A lot has changed for Anna Sawai since the first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. She’s now Emmy winner Anna Sawai, and her career continues to soar on the heels of her performance for the ages in Shōgun season one.  Her prolific awards season run in 2024 coincided with the filming of Monarch season two, and having that support system around her proved to be rather comforting during such an overwhelming time. She has added several buzzy films to her filmography in the time since, but she doesn’t sense much of a change internally. “I don’t know if [life] is that different. The first time we talked was for Monarch season one, and I still feel like myself from back then,” Sawai tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Apple TV and Legendary’s Monsterverse spinoff series, which returned Feb. 27. One of those aforementioned film projects is Sam Mendes’ The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, an ambitious four-part series …

Shōgun star teases The Beatles movie role: “People don’t know the true person”

Shōgun star teases The Beatles movie role: “People don’t know the true person”

Published by Daniella Wilson

Anna Sawai has opened up about her casting as Yoko Ono in Sam Mendes’ ambitious four-part The Beatles film series, which is currently in production. The never-before-attempted “cinematic event” consists of four interconnected films, to be released simultaneously in April 2028, each one taking the perspective of a different member of the iconic rock band. The main cast of The Beatles biopics is expected to appear across the entire series, although the size of their roles will obviously vary based on their proximity to the person in focus. Presumably, Sawai will be working most closely with Harris Dickinson (Babygirl, The Iron Claw) as he plays singer, songwriter and guitarist John Lennon, who famously married artist Ono in 1969. Want to see this content? To show this content, we need your permission to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes to load content on this page. During their relationship and for many years after, Ono was subject to harsh criticism by The Beatles fans and the media, who blamed her in no small part for the …

‘Shogun’ Creator Says Season 2 ‘Defies Expectations’

‘Shogun’ Creator Says Season 2 ‘Defies Expectations’

Published by skeptic

The “game” in season 1 was an emotionally charged structure that made you want to take sides between the opposing political forces. In season 2, Marks says, the game shifts to “unpredictable surprises.” An important piece in making this change happen is the presence of Ochiba no Kata, played by Fumi Nikaido. “In season 1, the role of the ballerina (Anna Sawai) played an important role and functioned as part of the English-language side of the story. In part 2, Ochiba’s character is placed at the center of the story,” Condou says. Her role in the story, which is based on Yodo-kun, the wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, goes beyond the confines of recreating history. This allows the political dynamics of the women to emerge as the main focus of the story, enhancing the scale of the political drama. Shogun’s writers and producers also have to deal with issues unique to historical dramas. History buffs, and Japanese viewers in particular, are already familiar with the outcome of the battle of Sekigahara, and any deviation from this …