Seiko Matsuda directs HBO Folklore episode inspired by ghost fan after dinner with Eric Khoo

Soon after coming offstage from one of her sell-out concerts, Japanese pop star Seiko Matsuda’s personal assistant pulled her aside and said she had a confession to make. The assistant had the ability to see ghosts – and she could see that, every time Matsuda picked up the microphone to perform, a phantom fan was in the audience.

That brush with the supernatural makes Matsuda the ideal choice to direct one of the six episodes that make up the second series of the hugely popular HBO Asia Original horror series Folklore, which will premiere on Nov 14.

“She told me that she could see the same ghost-person at every one of my concerts,” Matsuda, tells the South China Morning Post. “I didn’t know if it was true because I don’t have the power to see that, but what she said to me grabbed my heart. She said that she could see the same person at every concert. Why the ghost was there, I don’t know, but I could not forget that story.”

It became the genesis for her pivot from pop to directing the second episode in the series, a haunting yet touching tale titled The Day the Wind Blew.

Over dinner in Tokyo with award-winning Singaporean filmmaker Eric Khoo, Matsuda recounted her experience with a ghost fan. Some time later, they met up once more in Singapore and Khoo said he was looking for female directors from across the region to tap into Asia’s supernatural stories and bring them to the screen. Matsuda’s tale, he said, fitted the bill perfectly.

“I never expected to be asked to make the show,” Matsuda says, but she quickly found her feet in a very different medium.

“To have everyone together, creating, it was exciting to see the progress every day, especially as we got closer to the finish,” says Matsuda, who not only wrote the screenplay but also composed the music for the episode.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t17023twE0[/embed]

Matsuda also oversaw the casting of the actors for her story, selecting Burmese singer Win Morisaki – who shot to fame in Japan as a vocalist for J-pop idol band PrizmaX – as the singer Ken, with Haori Takahashi as schoolgirl and fan Mika. After attending one of Ken’s concerts, during which he notices and takes an interest in her, a cold wind follows Mika’s every move.

While the film is certainly in the horror genre, Matsuda also manages to inject other emotions into the storyline.

“Even though it is a horror movie that is meant to be scary, I also wanted to express the emotion of love,” she says. “That is the love between a boy and a girl, between a mother and her daughter, and I think we have managed to put so much love into the film as well.”

Considering the project was Matsuda’s first shot at a film, Khoo says he was impressed by her work off screen and the final product.

“She is a really creative person, with lots of ideas and a real interest in directing,” he says. “As well as directing this episode, she co-wrote the screenplay and I could feel the great sensitivity for the characters in the script.”

Matsuda, at 59, is still one of Japan’s all-time favourite singers after making her performing debut in the 1980s. She says she enjoyed this latest experience and that she hopes it might lead to further opportunities behind the camera lens in the future.

“It has been a wonderful experience for me and I learned so much,” she says. “I would be very interested in doing another project if the chance came up, as I want to learn more.”

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.