Veteran filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi rounds out the second of his two trilogies about his hometown of Onomichi with this film about the budding relationship between a young lad and an eccentric old man. Fifth-grader Yuta (Takuro Atsugi) is a typical city child looking forward to a summer of reading comic books and playing video games. Instead, he is bundled off to his grandparent’s house on the Inland Sea. His grandfather, Yuta’s parents explain, has been acting strangely as of late — he eats the offerings in the family altar and once tried to lead attendants at a funeral in a rousing round of calisthenics. Since his mother and father are swamped with work, and his elder sister (Nana Sano) is studying for college entrance exams, Yuta has been asked to look after Grandpa. The old man takes Yuta on a tour of Onomichi, regaling him with 70 years of its history. Along the way, Grandpa slips in and out of the past, increasingly unable to discern between the two.
Tag: taisho
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Spring Snow
Based on the first novel, Spring Snow, of Mishima Yukio’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy, it follows the troubled and illicit affair between two youngsters amongst the aristocracy and rich of early twentieth century Japan.
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The Ode to Joy
Based on the true story of the Bandō prisoner-of-war camp in World War I. It depicts the friendship of the German POWs with the director of the camp and local residents at the stage of Naruto, Tokushima Prefecture, in Japan.
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Yasuko, Songs of Days Past
In the early 1920s, Yasuko, a budding actress, crosses paths with Chūya Nakahara, a young poet destined to be revered as a genius. Drawn to each other by their shared pretentiousness, they begin living together and quickly fall into a complex relationship. Their lives take a dramatic turn when they move to Tokyo and are visited by Hideo Kobayashi, a friend of Chūya’s who would later emerge as one of Japan’s foremost literary critics. This seemingly chance encounter not only alters Yasuko’s fate but also entwines the three of them in an intense and inescapable destiny.