18×2 Beyond Youthful Days (2024)

Anecdotes

18×2 Beyond Youthful Days is a 2024 romance film directed by Michihito Fujii and produced by Chang Chen. Starring Greg Hsu and Kaya Kiyohara, alongside an ensemble cast including Joseph Chang, Shunsuke Michieda, Haru Kuroki, Hitomi Kuroki, and Yutaka Matsushige, the film follows a recently fired Taiwanese video game developer (Hsu) on a solo trip to Japan, reminiscing about a past romantic entanglement with a Japanese backpacker (Kiyohara) that never blossomed into a relationship.

Production

18×2 Beyond Youthful Days is adapted from and based on real-life events recorded in a travelogue titled Wandering Journey on Slow Train in Japan (Chinese: 日本慢車流浪記), written by Jimmy Lai under the pseudonym "Blue Fox". Lai, a Taiwanese video game developer, embarked on a vacation journey across Japan using the Seishun 18 Ticket and wrote the travelogue, aiming to reminisce about his romantic past with a Japanese backpacker.

After attaching to the project in 2019, Michihito Fujii spent four years penning the screenplay. He retained several background settings from Jimmy Lai's travelogue, including Lai's occupation as a video game developer and the names of the two main characters, Jimmy and Ami.

The film's production was officially announced under the working title Youth (Chinese: 青春) in March 2023, with Far EasTone as a major sponsor and starring Greg Hsu, Kaya Kiyohara, Hitomi Kuroki, and Chang Chen in lead roles. Chang later dropped out of the acting role to focus on his duties as producer. The casting choices were all proposed by Fujii, and Chang Chen provided advice but did not have a direct role in the casting process.

Hitomi Kuroki was invited by Chang Chen to make a cameo appearance, following their collaboration as award presenters at the 59th Golden Horse Awards, where Chang revealed to her that he was involved in a project with Michihito Fujii, and Kuroki gladly accepted the offer.

Principal photography began in Japan in March 2023. Michihito Fujii chose to film in Japan during March as the country undergoes seasonal change in that month, enabling the crew to capture both snowfall at the beginning of the month and cherry blossoms at the end. Taiwanese cinematographer Chan Chih-teng was initially attached to the project but had to withdraw since his wife was scheduled to give birth in the filming period.

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