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Jean Reno Returns as Doraemon With Beat Takeshi
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Filmmaker and comedian Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano) is co-starring alongside French film star Jean Reno (Léon: The Professional, Mission: Impossible, The Da Vinci Code) in a new series of television ads for Toyota Motor Corporation's newest hybrid model of its Crown luxury sedan. The ad series marks the first time the two actors have worked together. Takeshi had been playing a reincarnation of the Sengoku-era warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi in a previous series of ads for Toyota, and Reno returns as the manga cat Doraemon.
The first commercial in the series, which began airing in Japan earlier this month, features Doraemon's time machine. The ad shows Doraemon witnessing Hideyoshi's death in 1598 and then traveling through time to the present day when Hideyoshi is reborn to meet with him again.
The latest commercial in the series features Doraemon's "Dokodemo Door" (Anywhere Door). Kitano remarks in the commercial on how "love wins these days," and Reno approaches Kitano through the Anywhere Door and says, "even though in the past you were a man who loved power." The theme of the latest Crown model is "love over power." The latest commercial began airing in Japan on Wednesday.
Toyota previously aired eight live-action Doraemon-themed commercials earlier this year. The ad series depicted the characters of the classic children's manga Doraemon, two decades after they grow up.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
