Sanctuary

A juvenile delinquent becomes a sumo apprentice and finds himself on a collision course with a voiceless wrestler carrying a secret. A gritty look into the underbelly of professional sumo, a world full of young men with ambitions for money, women, fame, and power. This is the story in sumo ring where there is a sanctuary with a history of more than 1,500 years in Japan’s traditional culture and as a religious ceremony.

The story unhesitatingly pries open this “sanctuary”and breaks a taboo that has existed since ancient times and illustrates the ambition and fighting spirit of uncouth yet all so real sumo wrestlers, and depicts their jaw-dropping training and prowess. To achieve this, all of the actors who play the sumo wrestlers went through intense physical training for about one year under the instruction of Hollywood experts and a coach and nutritionist for Olympic athletes. For more than six months they practiced sumo wrestling. Wataru Ichinose (Weakest Beast) will be the lead by winning the role after his terrific audition and his past experience as a professional martial artist. He plays Saruzakura, who uses his impressive physique and gift for martial arts to join a sumo stable as a young disciple, although his eye is only on money, not the sport itself. The supporting cast includes Pierre Taki, playing the sumo stable master who accepts Saruzakura as his student and raises him believing in his potential while Saruzakura acts crudely because of his lack of fear. And Koyuki plays the stable master’s wife, always supporting her husband and beloved by the sumo wrestlers for her kind nature and beauty. Shota Sometani plays Shimizu, a young wrestler and Saruzakura’s only friend who, although he loves sumo with a passion, struggles because he lacks the physique for it. The series will be directed by Kan Eguchi, known for passionately crafting worlds true to real life (Riding Uphill, The Fable). The screenplay is written by Tomoki Kanazawa, who is the head of Gekidan K-Suke and wrote the screenplay for the hit TV drama series Hanzawa Naoki. These creators will bring us a tale of unprecedented vigor depicting the ambitions, fighting spirit, struggles, determination and joy of sumo wrestlers, as well as the beauty of sumo.