Kyôko Tôyama
Yusuke was a middle school teacher. but he quit his job due to problems with student bullying. After he quit, Yusuke learned that the bullied student committed suicide. Yusuke is now at Hotel Kopan to escape from everything. He keeps to himself and works as an employee at the hotel. The owner of the hotel is Sakuragi who wishes the hotel could return to its glory days during the Nagano Olympics. One day, a flurry of guests arrive at the hotel which makes Sakuragi ecstatic. Sakuragi decides to hold a party and invite the guests at his hotel. One of the guests is the mother of the student who committed suicide. Yusuke is distressed all over again. When the party begins, the guests talk about the problems they have.
Kaori (Nori Sato) runs a small piano studio. One of her students is Yuu (Uwa Ishibashi). On the way from a recital, Kaori is sexually assaulted by Yuu's father (Kentaro Furuyama). Kaori later learns Yuu has also been sexually abused by her father. Kaori and Yuu share each other's pain and eventually Kaori decides to fulfill Yuu's wish.
Ichiro Numata (Hiroaki Murakami) is the chief editor of a publishing company. He suddenly falls unconscious and is hospitalized, but various cases takes place at the hospital. Hospital Director Kenichiro Asashima and Chief Nurse Junko Amemiya goes missing. There are rumors that they were in a close relationship. Head of Drug Management, Yasuharu Horimura is found dead. Rumors were that he stalked Junko Amemiya. The investigation into his dead is carried out as a suicide case, but Detective Eiji Kirishima (Takanori Jinnai) suspects foul play. Ichiro Numata follows with his sharp eyes what transpires at the hospital and he also holds a secret.
Koizumi Akira, a son of a popular songstress, travels to a small-town cinema in far-off Kochi Prefecture to watch the closing movie before the theatre shuts its doors forever. The movie takes place in the same village but during the Showa 30s (1950s), in the years following the war. The story follows a young soldier who washes ashore on the beach one day, having lost his memory. He is "adopted" by the family who owns the village cinema and given the name Shimanto Taro. Although his past remains a mystery, Taro becomes good friends with many of the villagers, discovering his love for movies and falling in love with a feisty young girl.
Five short stories of life's joys and sorrows are brought together in this omnibus drama from Japan.
Hibi tells about mother who does pottery and lives rather simple life, growing her children up. She does remarkable job in pottery, finding a new way to make natural pottery in her own tunnel kiln. Then, her son gets leukemia. And entire family has to fight hard to find a donor who has matching bone marrow.
A lonely schoolboy discovers a block of wood carved into the shape of a human head. Seeking companionship he and the puppet-doll become best playmates. Soon things begin to change and the situation goes from innocent to downright sinister.
First Lieutenant Shun'ichi Maki of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force is a prestigious F-15 Eagle jet pilot (or "driver" as he is called in the film). A lifelong fan of flying since he was a child, being a pilot is his ultimate dream. Unfortunately, his duties distance himself from his wife, Yoko, who always ends up being neglected, and his son, Tsugumu, who has a congenital blood disease and has a high risk of dying at a young age.Maki decides to quit the Air Force to devote more time to his family and to spend whatever is left for his son. He takes a part-time job as a commercial tour guide run by a kindly group of people who allow him time to work and to also take care of his family.
Sawaki is a postman who's not quite thrilled about his boring way of life. But his life is about to change when he delivers mail to his old schoolmate Noguchi, who's now a member of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, and just finished cutting his little finger off...
An Obsession is Aoyama's remake for the 1990s of Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog ("Nora inu," 1949). The basic plot situation is the same: a cop, after losing his gun to a killer, sets out on a search for the criminal who in the end is all too disturbingly similar to the hero. Under Kurosawa's humanistic world view, Stray Dog presented the fundamentally shared nature of Japanese suffering amidst the Occupation and postwar poverty. An Obsession, however, is different.The film begins with a fin-de-siecle, apocalyptic sense of insanity which Kurosawa's humanism could never tolerate.
Still unmarried 20 years after losing the woman he loved, the lead character unexpectedly finds romance with a rebellious younger woman, just as his boss has become infatuated with a forlorn younger woman. The relationships reveal touching insight into friendship between middle-aged men and the mystery of young women.
The Story of Untouchable Passion In a rugby match, disaster strikes as player kazuki causes serious injury to his friend Takeshi, and as a result he is left as a vegetable. Kazuki is so plugged with guilt that he quits the team and settles in a remote kamakura Girl's high School as a sport teacher. During a hot summer holiday, Kazuki has fallen into a love relationship, albeit unacceptable to the outsiders, with one of his student Moe. Later, he realizes that his attraction to her comes from nothing other than her loneliness and a crime labelled as grossly unforgivable.
Seizo, a doctor, and his beautiful younger wife, Reiko. At first glance, they appear to be a respectable and amicable couple, but Seizo suspects that Reiko has a young lover. One day, the couple goes to see a new Noh play, "The Curse of Ondine," organized by a medical association. At the venue, Reiko catches the attention of a man, and even the young man at the reception desk gives her a heated look. "Reiko says, "Noh is boring," but Seizo warns her not to fall asleep, since the audience is all related. However, when the Noh play begins and Reiko looks at Seizo, she finds that he is asleep. From this point on, the world of death in the Noh play and the world of life in which the two people exist become parallel. Reality and unreality intersect as if the two are acting out a Noh play, and the secrets hidden in their daily lives begin to seep out.
