"This wonderful project started when my friend, the Lebanese writer Wajdi Mouawad, gave me a book and said I should make a movie out it," Francois Girard explains. "But after I read it I got back to him and said, 'Sorry, I disagree with you. This is really not right for a movie — but it's perfect for theater.' That book was 'Ryoju' ('The Hunting Gun'), a 1949 masterpiece by the genius novelist Yasushi Inoue."

Canadian director/screenwriter Girard, 48, is a prolific creator for both the stage and screen. He first made his mark in 1998 with his direction of the Oscar-nominated film "The Red Violin," and he's particularly well-known for writing and directing "Zed," the Cirque du Soleil's program currently being staged at a specially built theater in Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba Prefecture. He has now also created "Zarkana," a new show for the same entertainment group, which opened recently in New York.

In 2007, when Girard was directing the movie "Silk," the story of a 19th-century French silkworm dealer who travels to Japan on business and falls in love with the concubine of a rural bigwig, he came across actress Miki Nakatani. Though she wasn't the lead role, Nakatani's skill impressed Girard enough for him to decide he wanted to work with her again.