Publicity image for Chinese film adaptation by Wanda Pictures of Takuji Ichikawa’s novel ‘Be With You’.Wanda Pictures, one of China’s leading film producers and the owner of the largest chain of cinemas in China, has finally announced the team that will bring Takuji Ichikawa’s 2003 novel, Ima Ai ni Yukimasu (Be With You), to cinemas across China.
The Chinese film adaptation of Ichikawa’s second novel, a blockbuster of a book that has already been reimagined for film in Japan and Korea, manga and published in multiple foreign language editions including French, Italian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic and Korean to list just a few, is being produced personally by Wanda Pictures’ newly appointed Chair Chen Xi. Who despite still being in her early 40s is considered one of the most senior and respected women working in the Chinese film industry today. She also uses the name Yedda Chen in English.
Film adaptations in Japan and Korea have been hugely successful and expectations are running high for this new version of Ichikawa’s hugely successful narrative. The Chinese film adaptation of the novel, originally written in Japanese, is titled You duo yun xiang ni, and has been given the English subtitle A Gift from a Cloud.
The film recently entered its pre-production phase with filming expected to start in June, leading to various announcements in China regarding the team working on the film and the release of a short trailer. Gift from a Cloud is being directed by the award-winning Yao Tingting, who also developed the screen play of Ichikawa’s powerful and mesmerisingly positive tale of loss and acceptance. The film stars Qu Chuxiao and Wang Ziwen, in the leading roles playing husband and wife completing the stella team working on the film’s Chinese language adaptation.
A Gift from a Cloud is a fantasy love story that depicts the meaning and positive power of love, alongside the importance of companionship. The Chinese film adaptation, which is scheduled for release nationally at major theatres across China on 31 December 2024, tells the fantastic tale of Qin Tian (played by Qu Chuxiao) who returns to his wife Xiao Fan (played by Wang Ziwen) as the raining season commences.
After the long negotiations and protracted process of getting to this exciting point, when work is at last about to “crank up” and information about the adaptation for the silver screen is finally becoming public, Ishikawa says he was delighted and taken aback when he first learnt the names of the key individuals working on the latest adaption of his narrative. Calling it incredible, like a dream, to see the level, experience and quality of the people involved in the project.
Ichikawa, an author who himself is somewhat hard to pigeonhole, has recently had his own love story based on his 2018 I-Novel, Shishosetsu, adapted for television in Japan by TV Asahi. The Japanese minis series, like the Chinese adaptation, stared two high profiles individuals of the moment, Koji Seto and Juri Ueno, playing the roles of Ichikawa and his wife and was extremely well received by the critics.
Ichikawa has also published two novellas in the critically acclaimed, English-first, series, Red Circle Minis.
Details on the Chinese language adaptation can be found here.
Banner advertisement from the website of the Italian magazine, Oggi, promoting its series Love Library within which Takuji Ichikawa’s novel, Be With You, was published in March 2020