A moving drama about a traditional Japanese family through a quarter of a century.

It is the year 1988. Yamabuki is an eight-year-old little boy growing up in a traditional family where every family member has problems and secrets they try to hide from each other. The father runs a failing construction company and has an intimate relationship with another woman. The mother is struggling with severe depression, as she cannot cope with the death of her youngest child. The grandfather, who used to be a construction engineer, hopes to start building an amusement park, but to no avail. The grandmother runs a small store where she sells items of forged origin. The sister is fed up with the lies of her predecessors and is looking for a way to run away from home. In the midst of all this chaos, Yamabuki has started to find solace in patting an imaginary dog.

25 years later, when the grandmother, who kept the entire family together, is buried and the family gets together again, it is time for everyone to turn their back on the past and seek each other’s forgiveness. But is that possible?

Director Yukihiro Morigaki, who won the Best Asian Film award with his 2017 debut “Goodbye, Grandpa!”, again philosophises about the fermenting Japanese society and the divergence of different generations. The result is a film which despite all the hardship gives hope for a better future.

Helmut Jänes