Ryota Katayose is already big and is certainly getting bigger. Since 2012 he has been a member of Generations from Exile Tribe, a boy band spinoff from the Exile mega-group with a large following in not only Japan but also China and elsewhere in Asia. The 25-year-old has also starred in a number of television dramas and films (2017¡¯s ¡°My Brother Loves Me Too Much,¡± 2019¡¯s ¡°Prince of Legend¡°), while voicing the lead role in the hit 2019 Masaaki Yuasa animation ¡°Ride Your Wave.¡± He currently has 1.3 million followers on Instagram.

In his new film, ¡°Come to Kiss Me at 0:00 AM,¡± Katayose plays a fictional version of himself ¡ª a movie star, named Kaede Ayase, whose megawatt smile sends female fans into a swoon or a fit, or both. Watching it, I was somehow reminded of Paul McCartney in The Beatles¡¯ 1964 film, ¡°A Hard Day¡¯s Night.¡± There was the same steely professionalism under the boyish exterior and the same cool amusement at the madness swirling around him, though Katayose¡¯s character does what McCartney does not in the aforementioned film: Hang out with an actual teenage girl (Kanna Hashimoto), although one not so besotted (at least initially) as her friends.

Katayose was one of eight young entertainers to receive the ¡°Asian Stars: Up Next¡± award at the 4th International Film Festival & Awards Macao (IFFAM), which was held from Dec. 5 to 10 at various locations in the former Portuguese colony and present-day gambling mecca. Jointly presented by IFFAM and Hollywood movie trade magazine ¡°Variety,¡± the awards, according to the magazine¡¯s Asia editor, Patrick Frater, ¡°acknowledge performers who may well be on an upwards trajectory at home, but have not yet become household names across the whole planet.¡± The aim, he added, is to give emerging actors and actresses ¡°their deserved moment in the international spotlight.¡± (Disclosure: I am the Japan correspondent for ¡°Variety¡± and Frater is my editor.)