Rohan au Louvre (film)

"It draws the viewer into the world of the abyss... It's the ultimate in suspense. (観る者を深淵なる世界へと誘う、極上サスペンス)"

Rohan au Louvre (岸辺露伴 ルーヴルへ行く) is a live-action movie adaptation of the one-shot Rohan au Louvre, based on the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan TV drama series by. It was officially announced on January 4, 2023 and released in Japanese theaters on May 26, 2023. According to Issey Takahashi, the movie functions as the ninth episode of the TV drama.

The film will be released digitally worldwide exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on September 22, 2023. It will also be airing in Toronto, Canada at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre on October 5, 2023.

Summary
Rohan Kishibe, a manga artist with a special ability, once heard a rumor in his youth about a Black Painting from a woman he had a crush on. It was not only the blackest, but the most evil painting in the world.

Time passes, and in the process of writing a new work, Rohan learns that the painting is held at the Louvre Museum. He thus visits France for a viewing, and for a faint yearning he once had. However, strangely enough, even the museum staff was unaware of the existence of the Black Painting, and its storage location in the database was Warehouse Z-13, an underground warehouse that should have been empty.

There, Rohan comes face-to-face with the horrifying events caused by the Black Painting...

Production
Filming ended in Japan in Fall 2022 and continued in Paris, France. The film was shot on location at the, the , the , the , the Bridge, and the. It is unusual for a film to be permitted to be shot at the Louvre, and this is the second Japanese film to be shot there since , which was released in 2014. Other filming locations include, a café situated on the ; the in Paris; the town of  in Fukushima Prefecture; and the Hotel New Grand in Yokohama. Rohan's Grandmother's ryokan at which Rohan meets Nanase is the Mukaitaki ryokan in the town of Aizuwakamatsu.

The soundtrack was composed by Naruyoshi Kikuchi. Kikuchi specifies that the staff for the recording of the soundtrack has been tripled compared to the TV Drama. The main theme has been reworked, with claves being added to the original music for instance. Percussion instruments were favored for the production of the soundtrack, including Javanese and Balinese gamelans, but instruments such as the shamisen were also used.

Kento Nagao personally drew some of the sketches seen on the young Rohan's sketchbook.

The Japanese painter Fukui Ouka, who specializes in western-style oil paintings, has created several works for the film.

Reception
During the first weekend of its release, the movie generated ¥314,736,080 in revenues. After a month, the movie generated ¥1,000,000,000 in revenues with an estimated minimum of 720,000 viewers.