Gran Turismo creator has a perfect, easily missed cameo in the movie

Kazunori Yamuchi, the head of Polyphony Digital studio and creator of Gran Turismo is a motoring enthusiast who has spent 25 years building an interactive temple to cars and motorsport. Kazunori Yamauchi, the head of Polyphony Digital and the creator of Gran Turismo is an automotive enthusiast whose 25-year project has been to create an interactive temple dedicated to motorsport and cars. The quest for perfection is all he can think about. Between 2009 and 2016, he raced GT cars in 24-hour races, then gave the development team notes on exactly how it should look when the sun comes up over the Nordschleife Nürburgring.

There’s something of a mythology around Yamauchi (or, as many GT fans call him, Kaz), and I went into the Gran Turismo I was expecting to see him in the movie as himself, maybe stepping out from one of his Nissan GT-Rs wearing racing overalls. The movie was absolutely fantastic. The very first frame of the movie was of Kaz — fully suited up, of course — kneeling on a racing circuit’s asphalt, carefully studying the camber of a turn. But here’s the twist: It isn’t Yamauchi. It’s an actor portraying him.

Yamauchi doesn’t play a huge role in the film, which tells (with a good degree of creative license) the true story of Jann Mardenborough, a Gran Turismo player who graduated from the GT Academy program to a career as a professional racing driver. Aside from the nakedly promotional opening montage that establishes the brilliance and perfectionism of Polyphony and the Gran Turismo games, Yamauchi (the character) mostly appears in the background of press launches and other notable moments in Mardenborough’s career, looking on approvingly (as far as you can tell from his stoic countenance). He only has one line, and he’s mostly called on to provide reaction shots in which he doesn’t react very much. The character is not as laconic Kaz, but he does appear quite often. Either way, fictional Yamauchi is played by Takehiro Hira — probably most recognizable as the Japanese lead of the excellent BBC/Netflix crime drama Giri/Haji — who gives him an appropriate gravitas.

In the end, though, I wasn’t disappointed — Yamauchi does make a cameo in the film. It’s just not the way I thought he would.

[Ed. note: Very mild spoilers for Gran Turismo follow.]

Photo: Gordon Timpen/Sony Pictures

Mardenborough, played by Archie Madekwe, takes Audrey, played by Maeve Courtier Lilly, to Japan midway through the movie to help him promote his Nissan contract. In Tokyo, the couple go on date and stop at a fancy sushi restaurant. Mardenborough’s face lit up when he took a taste of the delicious sushi. “Oh my God, that’s amazing!” he says. For a brief moment, you can cut over to the sushi cook, who gives a small nod and smiles.

He was Kaz. Kaz is the sushi chef.

Kaz has the perfect cameo here. Neill Blomkamp’s team and he created it. Understanding the reasons behind this is a matter of understanding Kaz.

Yamauchi has a reputation as a gaming auteur. He is one of those who are most well-known, along with Hideo Cojima, Shigeru Miyamoto and others. Sony gives him near-total freedom to follow his vision. He runs his own studio. But he doesn’t make playful explorations of childlike wonder like Miyamoto, or cinematic epics laden with philosophizing like Kojima; he makes scrupulously realistic driving simulators that are often — understandably, if not entirely fairly — thought of as dry. If his personal characteristics are understood, they are “perfectionist,” “technocrat,” and “likes cars.”

As illustrated by interviews and the 2014 hagiographic yet revealing vanity documentary Kaz: Pushing the Virtual DivideYamauchi, the dreamer and romantic, is a real person. When he was a young boy, Yamauchi would draw endlessly on walls in his home, which were then re-papered by his parents. When he joined Sony’s gaming program in the 1990s, before PlayStation was even a thing, Gran Turismo already existed in his head. It’s the only game he ever wanted to make, and he clearly finds something soulful in exploring, through his re-creations of the history of motorsport and the auto industry, humanity’s striving for something more.

Imagine him as a chef of sushi. Gran TurismoKaz is portrayed as someone who not only loves video games and cars, but also craftsman, artfulness and precision. He lives to see you appreciate his work.

Gran TurismoThe film opens on August 25 in U.S. cinemas.