Never heard of some of those peopleÂ
I do know who Michelle Yeoh is though... I think she'd be a fairly good choice, but Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for his Pillow and Brilliance of the Moon are Japanese tales, and seeing as the Chinese and Japanese don't like each other... It'd be best to pick out some Japanese people to play the roles.
I don't know why, but I always saw Ken Watanabe playing Lord Otori in my head. He's just the guy who I always saw playing him ^_^ After seeing him in 'The Last Samurai', you can see why! I haven't a clue who could play Takeo though. As for Lady Maruyama, I have no idea. They'd probably get a fairly well-known model to ply her, seeing as she's meant to be graceful and tall and smart. And I'm just putting a name to a face when I say I think Satomi Ishihara should play Kaede.
Links to names...
Satomi Ishihara :
http://www.jdorama.com/artiste.1816.htmKen Watanabe :
http://imdb.com/name/nm0913822/I'm still thinking about Lady Maruyama and Takeo... I don't know to many Japanese models or young boys from 16-21. lol!
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Okay edit: Still no idea whatsoever about Takeo, which is terrible seeing as the guy would have the lead role! Okay, I've come back with a few people who I know are Japanese models, and also act...
Yuriko Ishida
Hikari Ishida
Koyuki
Miki Nakatani
Nanako Matsushima
The most well known models.actresses out of them I suppose are Miki and Nanako. Seeing as Lady Maruyama should be fairly tall, upright and elegent, either Nanako or Koyuki should take that role. I think Miki doesn't look right for a Lady Maruyama, but could make a really cool Yuki if she had black hair again and they attached some more. It's be cool to see Yuriko as Shizuka, she has the right face for it. I could only really imagine Kaede with someone like that, you know. (I'm weird, you know ^_^)
Next step... Finding Takeo... Err... Maybe I'll do that later ^_^