Isabel Coixet picks stars for 'Sounds'

'Elegy' director casts Kikuchi and Lopez in drama

By JOHN HOPEWELL

Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi Lopez will star in Isabel Coixet's "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," the Spanish director's follow-up to Penelope Cruz starrer "Elegy."

"Map" based on an original screenplay by Coixet, will be produced by Mediapro, the Spanish co-producer of Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," and Barcelona's Versatil Cinema.

"Map" turns on a solitary young Japanese woman who works in a fish market at night and occasionally as a hired killer. She's contracted to assassinate a Spanish man, who's blamed for the suicide of a rich businessman's daughter. Meanwhile, a sound engineer, who's fascinated by the woman and the sounds of Tokyo, tracks the girl through the city.

The engineer will be played by Japanese dance star Min Tanaka.

Coixet's seventh feature, says the Spanish director, "reflects my fascination with contemporary Japanese culture, the atmosphere of novels by Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, my confessed addiction for wasabi, and the almost material vibrations of Tokyo at night."