‘Shaolin Girl’ gets some free PR the hard way

On the April 26th episode of the Fuji TV comedy show Mecha-Mecha Iketeru! Takashi Okamura endured several instances of "sudden boiling water" in exchange for the right to promote Shaolin Girl, in which he had fight scene with the film's star, Kou Shibasaki. The gag was an ode to the long-running Takeshi Kitano variety show "Super Jockey" which consisted of bikini-clad models sitting in baths of hot water while being basted with giant soup ladles. In exchange they'd be allowed to plug whatever they wanted for the amount of time they were able to stay submerged. And of course, if anyone deviated from the show's guidelines they'd get smacked in the head by a giant hand on a stick wielded by Kitano. The twist in the Mecha-Mecha Iketeru! version is that the water is a surprise and the sudden shock of being dumped into boiling water usually made Okamura leap out as fast as he could, resulting in a pitiful 4 or 5 second promo.

Near the end they set it up to happen again at a press event with Kou Shibasaki and executive producer Chihiro Kameyama present. Okamura gets angry that he's the only one going through all this to promote the movie so Shibasaki and the rest of the Mechaike gang all volunteer to join him. However, when Kameyama reluctantly raises his hand along with them they channel an old comedy gag and Mechaike's resident cauldron of rage Koji Kato gives him a shove of encouragement. During the closing credits they trick Shibasaki into talking about the movie out of turn but Okamura valiantly saves her from getting head-smacked.

Below is a clip of the relevant segments. Keep in mind this went on for over 45 minutes so I had to trim most of the episode.

Tags: kou shibasaki, mechaike, shaolin girl, takashi okamura