Rinko Gets NORWEGIAN WOOD

Some books I just haven’t read and it pains me to hear all the buzz about it beforehand. Doesn’t mean I have all the time in the world to be reading every single book out there that’s going to be turned into a movie, I’m barely finishing Robert Ludlum’s intense thriller The Matarese Circle.

According to Variety, the adaptation of Haruki Murakami‘s 1987 novel NORWEGIAN WOOD will now have its stars in the presence of Kenichi Matsuyama as the troubled College Student hero, newcomer model Kiko Mizuhara as the hero’s classmate, and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (Babel, The Brothers Bloom) as the lover of Matsuyama’s close friend
I’ll pay close attention to whatever Kikuchi does because speaking on behalf of struggling Asian actors, it’s good to see her represent us in Hollywood without having to fall into the stereotype of martial art gigs only.. Although I’d like to see her do some serious action flick one of these years, that’d be quite a sight to see.

Directed by Tran Anh Hung, produced by Asmik Ace, the movie’s expected to open in fall 2010, but what is NORWEGIAN WOOD about? Here’s the official synopsis of the book..
“This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student’s romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man’s first, hopeless, and heroic love.”