JAPAN: After premiering in New York, Berlin and London, the cast of King Kong bring the Peter Jackson hit to Tokyo

Director Peter Jackson and the cast of the new "King Kong" movie landed in Japan ahead of the movie's Wednesday (December 15) opening. Naomi Watts, Jackson's leading actress, delighted fans with her Japanese skills. "How are you? (Konnichiwa). I'm Naomi (Watashiwa Naomi desu.) How are you all? (Ogenki desuka?)," Naomi told fans at the premiere in central Tokyo on Monday (December 12). "Hello, Tokyo, it's great to be here," she added in English. Watts plays the role made famous by Fay Wray more than 70 years ago. The latest remake of the 1933 movie was directed by the "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson and its cast includes Watts, Adrian Brody and Jack Black. "I was walking around Tokyo today, looking around the city, and there was something missing - I didn't see Kong on top of the Tokyo Tower," Jackson told the audience. "Maybe, that could be the sequel." Director Jackson shifted his attention from the tiny Oscar-winning hobbits of Middle Earth to this 200 million U.S. dollars remake of the classic "Beauty and the Beast" story about the giant ape and his love for a blond woman who fits in the palm of his hand. "The original King Kong is the film that we based this on. The story of this movie very much follows the plot and lines of the 1933 King Kong. And it's not really about him fighting other monsters. It's just about his relationship with Ann. It's very, very emotional. It will make you cry at the end." Jackson told Reuters on the red carpet. Jackson' remake is set in the 1930s but updated with the kind of 21st century computer technology that he showed off in his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. He has also made Kong look and behave like an authentic gorilla, apart from the unnatural size, and based Kong's attraction with the character Ann Darrow on a real gorilla's need for companionship, not on the fondling and ogling of the original and its 1976 remake. he result is a three-hour, white-knuckle ride that Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric, hopes will thrill audiences and position Jackson as the most bankable director of blockbusters since Steven Spielberg. Jackson, a 44-year-old New Zealand native, said he has wanted to remake Kong ever since he was 12 years old.

ITN Source | December 16, 2005

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