James Corden joins comedian Naomi Watanabe, John Legend, others for hilarious SK-II commercials

Chinese actress Tang Wei also makes a special appearance!

Japanese companies have been known to go pretty wacky with their TV commercials, but recently one trend seems to be for them to tell a story, especially over a series of commercials. Japanese makeup and cosmetics brand SK-II has capitalized on this trend by making a series of commercials for their PITERA Essence product that are not only engaging, but also really funny, and which feature a star-studded cast of popular Japanese, Chinese, and American celebrities.

The commercials started off with a series of videos titled #BareSkinChat, which has both a Japanese and an English version. The Japanese version features comedian, fashionista, and actress Naomi Watanabe, who is an Instagram queen as well as a beauty expert, and popular actress Kasumi Arimura, while the English version features The Late Late Show’s James Corden and actress Chloë Grace Moretz. In it, Corden and Watanabe, who play parallel roles, ask their friends about their skin care routines and baffle them with their…weirdness.

▼ The English version of the first episode

▼ The Japanese version of the first episode

There are five episodes of the #BareSkinChat, in which Corden and Watanabe learn their friends’ “secret to beautiful skin” is just SK-II PITERA Essence. What seems to logically follow from that is the first episode of the #PITERAMasterClass, in which Corden and Watanabe randomly meet in a bamboo forest–wearing shirts with each other’s faces on them–and fight over who is now the real PITERA Master…

…until an old man sticks his head out of a random wooden building and tells them that neither one is the PITERA Master. So, in the next episode, he proceeds to force them to mix rice with their hands, so they can learn a valuable lesson about “youthful looking hands”.

Chinese actress and “global spokesperson for SK-II” Tang Wei also makes an appearance. She shows Corden how to speak Chinese, how to pose with SK-II bottles, and how to properly use PITERA Essence…to debatable degrees of success.

Somehow SK-II also managed to snag musician John Legend, who has actually composed a theme song for PITERA Essence, called “Oh PITERA”, although Corden doesn’t really seem to think it’s appropriate for the occasion. Legend sings the song with a piano accompaniment as scenes from all of the videos, those posted so far and those upcoming, play, and although the song is beautiful and romantic, the whole production is obviously very tongue-in-cheek.

The videos are pretty silly but actually quite funny, and though they’re very clearly an advertisement for SK-II’s “miracle water”, they don’t take themselves so seriously that they’re annoying to watch, like some ads. There are many more already up and it looks like a few more are going to come out, so keep an eye on SK-II’s channel to make sure you don’t miss the hilarity!

Source: YouTube/SK-II via TvGroove, E! News
Top Image: YouTube/SK-II
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