Kago Ai – New Blog Translations + Interview Summary

It’s again taken from h-o XD

 

Ohmynews put up another video interview with Kago on May 26th (thanks to faraithi for the heads-up), and you wan watch it here. We’ve summarized the whole thing in English below, so enjoy!

Kago begins her interview, two months since her first, with a “da jia hao” to her fans. She’s been in Hong Kong for just over a week and is enjoying her time. She was surprised when she first arrived that it didn’t look very different from Japan. She found the scenery and faces to be more familiar than in places like America. But when she had her first big meal, that’s when she really realised she was in China.

On the subject of her action scenes, she says that she had an intense day-long training session the day before filming. She had trouble learning to kick at first, but she had been going to a gym in Tokyo to prepare and is proud to show off her muscles. She also shows off her many bruises from the action scenes. But she explains that they don’t hurt, because during the fights they hold back their power to avoid injury. She know that people could get hurt badly if they weren’t careful, so she did her best to concentrate.

She’s really enjoyed the action scenes, but admits that they’ve been really hard on her and nearly brought her to tears at times. She mentions one scene in which watermelon is splashed all over her. But she forgot that she’s allergic to melon, so she had a reaction to it. Some allergy medication cleared that up. She says that when you’re really into an action scene, things like pain don’t really bother you. She learned a lot from working with and training under action director Cheung-yan Yuen, who also worked on the Matrix movies. She found it hard having to do the same moves over and over again to get them right, and also to get her expressions right while still concentrating on her stunts. She says that she’s always had an interest in action movies, even though she admits to being unathletic. It’s something that she wanted to do if she had the chance.

She explains that her script for the movie was written all in Japanese and that all of her lines are spoken in Japanese, and dubbed later. She just met Sammo Hung for the first time that day. He said “Good morning” to her in English, and she replied in English. She says that he’s a really nice guy, and she’s happy to be in a movie with him. She’s looking forward to the scenes they’ll have together and hopes to get to know him better. Up until now, most of her scenes have been with Vanness Wu, and they’ve worked well together. He helped her to feel at ease with her acting and helping her with her role. According to the interviewer, Vanness has said that he really likes working with Ai because she’s so “great and cute” – though she has difficulty believing he’d say something like that.*

She says that the action scenes are now over and the next part will involve more drama and story telling. So she’ll be appearing in a lot of scenes with Sammo Hung and another actor named Cherrie. She feels like those two are almost like family and make her feel at home.

She’s happy to be where she is now, and thinking back to where she was a year ago, she’s grateful to all the people who have helped her out. She feels that she has to work hard and do her best for them, and doesn’t want to give up, no matter how hard it gets. She really wants to make a great movie.

Her final message to her fans: “Hello to all my fans, this is Kago Ai. I’m in Hong Kong, China right now. I’m learning a lot, making my first action movie here. There have been some frustrating parts along the way, but I know I have the support of all my fans. I want to hear all your voices again, so I’m going to work hard. Then I’ll come back to Japan, having grown a little more. Then I hope you can all see how I’ve changed back in Japan. Please continue to support me when I get back. I’ll do my best here!”

* Note: You can see the Vaness Wu interview mentioned here at the Ohmynews site. Vaness speaks in English, so no translation is necessary. Sammo Hung is also interviewed, and we’ve translated his Kago-related lines:

About her future potential: “I haven’t known her for very long, but I think she can become very famous. It’s important to have new people like her come into the movie business.”

His impression of her: “Of course she’s cute. She’s cute, but acting ability is something more than that. She’s brought more than just cuteness into this business. I think she really has acting ability too. I’m sure she’ll get better and better as she continues to act.”

A final message to the Japanese fans: “Good evening (spoken in Japanese) I wish you all good fortune and health. Happy every day (spoken in English)”

I’m happy about her being happy =D sounds great that she and her fellow actors like each other  ☆ Mou~ first to speak it in japanese and then dubbing it o.O? Hm… whatever, we’ll see XD! Now the blog entries~

 

2008/5/22 14:01
Bring it on!!!

This is no time for the weakling Ai. I have to be strong and go for it! I may not be very athletic*… But that doesn’t matter ♪ (lol)

Hello ☆ I know I made you all worry, so thank you for your concern! But I’m all right. It may give me bruises all over my body, but I’m doing an action movie! That’s how I look at it to get myself fired up. So, it doesn’t hurt. You don’t need to worry. I wanted to tell you all about what happened yesterday, but my writing was all over the place and it was probably hard to read…

Sorry! And this is a blog, but please don’t worry that I’m going to force myself to write more than I should. I know people are thinking “Shouldn’t you be concentrating on the movie?”… They’re worried. If I don’t update, please think of it like “Aibon must be concentrating now.” (lol)

Yesterday I had mimiga (pigs ear) for lunch on the set. Have you eaten that before? I hadn’t, so yesterday was my first time! My reaction to it… “It’s okay!” I don’t like to have favourite foods or foods I won’t eat, so I had no problem eating mimiga. Isn’t that good of me? Oh, but I can’t eat the bitter part of sazae. It’s a very mature taste, so I still can’t appreciate it ^ ^; I want to slowly try more and more things. So, please watch out for me ☆☆

Now here’s today’s lunch! Stir-fried pork with water spinach. It’s really good. I don’t really know how to describe it, sorry. But I’m going to eat it!

ai

* Kago used the term “Undou Onchi”, which some of you may remember from the Mechaike Sports special (it was shortened to “unchi” (”crap”) by host Okamura). It’s hard to say if she was referring to that special here though.

I can hear you ♪
2008/5/24 20:00

Ai-chan!
Aibon!
Kago-chan!

With all your comments, it feels like they’re not just written words, but it’s like I can hear your voices ☆ Thank you ☆

Sorry that I couldn’t write a blog yesterday… Did you miss me? (lol)

Yesterday’s filming went until 8 o’clock this morning. We’ll be filming until morning again today, so I’m starting to live nocturnally.

Sleepiness, please don’t come near me.

All right, I’m going to go for it!

See you later!

For some reason, I’m starting to long for Japan (lol)

ai

With Cherrie ★
2008/5/25 10:00

This is me with the actor playing my sister, Cherrie! She’s really funny, so we’re always hanging out together. I really wish I had a big sister like Cherrie!

ai

Like family…
2008/5/25 21:30

Cherrie is so funny, she always makes me laugh. And then Sammo Hung smiles at me with a kind, fatherly smile ☆ It’s like they’re all my family.

We’re doing our filming at a restaurant, so backstage there’s a big round table. We all sit there for dinner and spin it around (lol)

There’s also a big TV in the waiting room, and I was watching kung-fu movies on it when I had some free time. I was sitting behind Sammo Hung (for about 4 hours, maybe?) Then he had to go shoot a scene and came back later, and he asked, “Are you still here?” ☆

Sammo Hung, I was behind you for 4 hours… (lol)

All right, today I have to make sure I give off an “I’m here” kind of aura ♪

Now, I’m going to go have dinner!

Thank you all for your support. Cherrie is really pretty and funny, so I love her! She says, “I’m a Gemini, and Ai is an Aquarius, so we get along well!” ♪ Today I hold her, “They all said you looked pretty ☆” She seemed happy to hear that.

She really is funny ^^

ai

Time for dinner!

A meal before filming
2008/5/26 10:00

I’m so full! It’s a flounder meuniere with caesar salad and bread!

Finished off with a choclate cake ★ This was all Vanness’ treat!

ai

It’s really rare.
2008/5/26 11:00

Good morning again, my friends! ★

Today, Sammo Hung brought us a whole lot of refreshments! Watermelon, mangosteen, dragon fruit, bananas, grapes, apples, cherry tomatoes, guava, and corn.

We all ate it together! All of the fruits were so big and sweet, so we were really touched by it. The staff forgot about taking pictures, and we all ate until it was gone! (lol)

To be honest, I don’t eat a lot of fruit, but now I think I’ll start eating more. They’re good for you, and make you look good. So, you should all eat lots of fruit too ★ Today, I’m going to watch a Sammo Hung movie in the waiting room with Sammo Hung.

Talk to you later!

ai

Near the hotel
2008/5/26 22:00

I just came to a little restaurant! I’ve been so hungry that I can’t stop eating! So, I was just eating and eating. My manager said, “Ai, you really do eat a lot…” (lol) But it’s a long day today!

Now I’m going to go get my makeup done and go to the set ★

ai

Going out in China!
2008/5/27 21:45

[This post was written in English]

Hi.
We are going to supermarket!
After that we will go for dinner!
I want to have pork.
CHINA is huge!

See you later…

ai

Next…
2008/5/28 00:15

There were a lot of people in the supermarket, and I got lost…

In that last photo, the woman next to me was Cindy, my Cantonese interpreter ★ Every night here, there’s a thunder storm. Tonight, for dinner (or was it breakfast?), I had tomato and egg stir fry with fried vegetables. It was good!

Oh. I’ve started talking about food again… But it seems like I’ve only been getting one meal a day, so I really look forward to food. But I do have all that fruit in the waiting room! Okay, it’s time to go get my makeup done ★

By the way, the time here is only one hour behind Japan here!

ai

The third one today
2008/5/28 00:30

Here’s a “chu-shot” [pun: combination of "photo of two people" and "photo of kissing"] of me and Cherrie ★ We’re always talking together. Cherrie is 25 years old ★

She’s promised me that she’ll come and see me in Japan some day (^ – ^)

ai

 

_____________

Aaaaaaw~ I’m so proud of Ai-chan ★It looks like she got a few really really good friends in China -^^-! I want to know more about Cherrie, because Ai seems to be really happy to know her, she must be a wonderful person, don’t you think?

~ by yanki07 on May 27, 2008.