TOKYO JAPAN produced the red carpet for the world's most celebrated wizard yesterday for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film from JK Rowling's mega-hit fantasy series.
Hundreds of young Japanese fans, wearing witch costumes and holding magic wands, screamed as Daniel Radcliffe, who played the teenage Harry, appeared as white smoke spewed on the stage before the film's premiere in Tokyo.
"Japanese fans are the best" Radcliffe said in simple Japanese, before signing autographs for the hordes of fans.
Order of the Phoenix, which opens in Britain on July 12, is directed by David Yates, a Briton best known for the multilayered TV thrillers State of Play and Sex Traffic.
The film opens as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is undergoing a gradual takeover by the bureaucratic Ministry of Magic and its emissary, Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge, played by Imelda Staunton. The sense of impending doom is heightened by a series of nightmares that link Harry ever more closely to the devilish Voldemort, bringing Rowling's saga into even darker territory.
The Harry Potter books have been translated into 65 languages and sold more than 325 million copies since the first volume, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997.
After this film, the next Harry-related frenzy will be the publication of the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, on July 21.
Radcliffe and co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who play Harry's friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, have been at the centre of the Harry Potter storm for almost half their lives.
"It's just absolutely brilliant. He's an icon," Radcliffe said, explaining why he has been playing Harry for such a long time. He is somebody whose character has gotten his generation of kids into reading.
"So it's an honour to play him."-AP Picture: Issei Kato/Reuters
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