Norwegian Wood: Young Love

An intricate story of love and loss set against a 1960s backdrop of student rebellion, Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood is something of a Japanese Catcher in the Rye, translated into 36 languages with an ardent international fan base. Following a four-year campaign by director Tran Anh Hung, the famously reticent Murakami finally conceded to a film version. The plot turns on a complex love triangle between sensitive college student Watanabe, charmingly idiosyncratic Midori and the darkly troubled Naoko. In today’s exclusive clip, Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) details her theory of love to an entranced Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama). Says Anh Hung: "When I read Norwegian Wood I felt this intimacy, as though the book discovered me somehow, recognized who I am. I think many people have felt that way, and that's the key to its success." The Vietnamese director (The Scent of Green Papayas, Cyclo) recruited Karl Lagerfeld's latest muse, actress Rinko Kikuchi, to play the fragile Naoko. Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood provides a lush score that melts into Anh Hung’s expansive shots of the spectacular waterfalls, windswept meadows and mountainous regions of Japan’s Tonomine and Mineyama highlands.