Hyakuman-en to nigamushi onna (2008)

A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.

Director:

Yuki Tanada

Writer:

Yuki Tanada

Stars:

Yû Aoi, Mirai Moriyama, Pierre Taki

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Yû Aoi	...	Suzuko Satô
Mirai Moriyama	...	Ryôhei Nakajima
Pierre Taki	...	Haruo Fujii
Terunosuke Takezai	...	Yuuki
Ryusei Saito	...	Takuya Satô
Sumie Sasaki	...	Fujii Kinu
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Noriko Eguchi
Kami Hiraiwa
Keisuke Horibe
Tarô Ishida
Midoriko Kimura
Kôta Mizumori	...	Noguchi
Ayumu Saitô
Takashi Sasano	...	Siraishi - Master of Kissaten 'White'
Kyûsaku Shimada

Storyline

Suzuko is 21 years old and lives at home. A coworker offers to share an apartment with her. After they sign the lease, Suzuko discovers that her coworker has planned to share her room with her boyfriend. However, the day she moves in, the couple have broken up, leaving her with the boyfriend as a roommate. She finds a small kitten on her balcony and brings it in. She goes to the store to buy it food. When she returns, she finds out that her depressed roommate has thrown the kitten out. Finding the dead kitten in the road, Suzuko throws all her roommates belongings out. She is arrested and criminally charged. She ends up in prison. Upon her release, she finds herself dealing with the neighborhood gossip and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to a place where no one knows her and to continue repeating the process. She discovers many things about herself, as she corresponds with her younger brother, (who is dealing with bullies) and meets new people on her ...

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Plot Keywords:

roommate | kitten | gossip | 21 year old | travel | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

19 July 2008 (Japan)

Also Known As:

One Million Yen and the Nigamushi Woman

Filming Locations:

Ageo, Saitama, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nikkatsu

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

User Reviews

Simply fantastic

I love these 'search for self' type road-movies, and I've seen many of them, but this is among the best.

The movie starts with the protagonist Suzuko (Aoi Yuu) getting arrested for throwing out all of her roommate's belongings. The criminal record made it hard for her to stay home, so she saved up 1 million yen ($10000) to move to another town where nobody knows her. She repeats this process throughout the movie to keep her distance from others.

Aoi Yuu was incredible in this movie, her control of emotion was flawless, especially in the final scene. I never realized how skinny she was though... I really connected with the protagonist. In fact, I sympathized with her character to the point it felt like I was watching myself from couple years ago. All the other actors gave excellent performance as well.

Music in this movie matched all the scenes very well, even background noises served to heighten the tension etc. Great direction all around, and there were many beautiful scenes of various landscapes in Japan, from sea to mountain, countryside to city.

This film had many memorable scenes, and the story was very intriguing. I especially liked that line, "I don't want to search for myself, I'm here even if I don't want to be here." We all try to escape from reality sometimes, I'm sure this movie would give you courage to face your problems.