It’s a bumper day for anyone hoping to find out who Hugh Jackman will be acting with in The Wolverine… No less than six actors have been confirmed across three separate casting stories. So prepare to welcome Will Yun Lee, Brian Tee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi, Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima to the Marvel universe.
Actually Lee, one of the more famous names of the new crop, should really be welcomed back to the fold, since he also appeared in Elektra. But he’ll be much more familiar once the remakes of** Total Recall** and Red Dawn arrive as he has meatier parts in both, as well as a recurring role in the Hawaii Five-0 telly redo. Variety reports that he’ll be Harada, AKA The Silver Samurai, which means he’s one of the major villains of the piece.
Also aboard, this time according to the Hollywood Reporter, is Tee. A veteran of US TV guest roles (most recently on Grimm and Burn Notice), he’s signed to play Noboru Mori, a corrupt minister of justice who is set to marry the daughter of a Yakuza crime lord. But he’ll face trouble with that life plan, since she also happens to be Logan’s love interest.
That brings us neatly to the other new arrivals, as ferretted out by Coming Soon’s sources. Sanada will be Shingen, the crime boss, while newcomer Okamoto is Mariko, the apple of Shingen's eye and the (current) love of Wolverine’s life. Fukushima, meanwhile, is an assassin who drugs our hero before Shingen challenges him to a duel and nearly kills him. Yamanouchi, meanwhile, will be Yashida.
Naturally, we’d expect Mark Bomback’s script, which is inspired by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s fantastic comic book run, to offer up some tweaks on its way to the screen.
James Mangold will begin wrangling the action next month in Australia and The Wolverine is set to arrive on July 26, 2013.