Romeo! Romeo! DiCaprio Fells Tokyo

“Leomania” has struck Tokyo, as lovesick fans spent up to three sleepless nights standing in line in hopes of catching even a glimpse Saturday of Japan’s hottest cinema heartthrob, “Titanic” star Leonardo DiCaprio, and then nearly blocked his arrival at the Tokyo Film Festival.

They screamed. They sobbed. About 2,000 frenzied fans, from middle school students to thirtysomething office workers, all but stampeded a cordon of Japanese security officials, who are accustomed to more genteel deportment by their designer-clad young women.

In the end, organizers had to sneak DiCaprio into the festival through a back door, although “Air Force One” star Harrison Ford had managed to enter by the front door a few hours earlier. Once DiCaprio made it to the stage, his fans in the balcony nearly drowned out their idol’s remarks by wailing “Leo!” and “Romeo!” (a reference to his starring role in last year’s “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.”

The performance by the fans, perhaps even more than the screening of the sumptuous disaster epic, succeeded in convincing Tokyo film critics that “Titanic” is destined to be a hit, at least in the lucrative Japanese market.

“There is absolutely no question,” said Michika Ishikawa, critic for the Cinema Report, a weekly TV program. “In Japan, if the young girls don’t catch fire, you can’t have a hit.”

Ishikawa found “Titanic” “very romantic” and well-acted, although she noted that it was long at three hours and three minutes.

U.S. film industry sources have estimated that the cost of the much-delayed “Titanic” has already risen above $200 million and could hit $285 million by the time it opens in the United States on Dec. 19. That ranks it as the most expensive film ever made.

Japanese critics said the decisions by 20th Century Fox to have “Titanic” premiere at the relatively low-profile Tokyo Film Festival, rather than the London Film Festival a week later, and to send DiCaprio to Japan to promote it,were shrewd marketing moves.

A hit in Japan, where the film opens its run Dec. 20, could go a long way toward recouping the film’s colossal costs, Ishikawa and others said. DiCaprio’s “Romeo & Juliet” acquired near cult status among some Japanese women.

“I saw it 10 times. Once I saw it three times in a single day,” said Eiko Kitada, 26, who wore a “Romeo & Juliet” ring on a chain around her neck and stood outside the festival hall holding a sign that read, “Please sell me a ‘Titanic’ ticket, please!”

Only 800 of the 2,000 seats to the “Titanic” premiere were put on sale to the public, and several high school girls who were not able to buy tickets said they were willing to pay more than $400 for a chance to see DiCaprio “raw,” meaning “live” in Japanese slang.

Miyuki Ogura, 27, managed to get a ticket by taking the day off work and spending the previous night in line. “It was worth it; it was awesome,” she said as she left the theater after the screening with tears pouring down her cheeks.

Ogura and her friends said the only male star who can compete with DiCaprio for Japanese female affection is Kimura Takuya of Japan’s top pop group, SMAP. DiCaprio “is much more popular than Brad Pitt,” his nearest Western rival, Ogura said.

Fans said the 183-minute “Titanic” was not a minute too long. And they praised the realism of the special effects, which include underwater footage from one of the excursions that director James Cameron took to the wreck of the luxury liner, which lies 2 1/2 miles beneath the Atlantic.

In a somber introduction, Cameron noted that the 2,000-member audience “is the same number of people who were on the Titanic when she sailed.”

“If all of us here were on Titanic on the fateful night of her sinking, three-quarters of us would be dead by morning,” he said. “So I would like to dedicate this film to the 1,500 lost souls of Titanic.”

Cameron called the Titanic’s calamitous maiden voyage in 1912 “the quintessential disaster of the 20th century, because it’s a potent reminder even today of the consequences of human arrogance and of putting our blind faith in technology.”

Technological tribulations and the sheer size of the film delayed its release past the original date of July 4, and the film was only barely ready for showing in Tokyo. The screening itself began half an hour behind schedule.

Translator Natsuko Toda worked around the clock to complete the Japanese subtitles, which she said weren’t finished until 2 a.m. Saturday. She said the two halves of the film were hand-carried separately from Los Angeles at the last minute--but in the wrong order, so she had to subtitle the ending first.

“It’s still steaming fresh, so enjoy it,” Toda said.

DiCaprio, 22, told fans that “Titanic” was “the most incredible movie experience I’ve ever had. . . . It was the longest film I’ve ever done, and it was a long journey. . . .

“It made a man out of me,” he concluded, and the fans went wild.

Makiko Inoue from The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.