| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Tôru Emori | ... | Gin (voice) |
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Aya Okamoto | ... | Miyuki (voice) |
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Yoshiaki Umegaki | ... | Hana (voice) |
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Shôzô Îzuka | ... | Oota (voice) |
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Seizô Katô | ... | Mother (voice) |
| Hiroya Ishimaru | ... | Yasuo (voice) | |
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Ryûji Saikachi | ... | Aged Man (voice) |
| Yûsaku Yara | ... | Miyuki's Father (voice) | |
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Kyôko Terase | ... | Sachiko (voice) |
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Mamiko Noto | ... | Kiyoko, Gin's Daughter (voice) |
| Akio Ôtsuka | ... | Doctor (voice) | |
| Rikiya Koyama | ... | Bridegroom (voice) | |
| Satomi Kôrogi | ... | Kiyoko, the Gangster's Daughter (voice) | |
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Mitsuru Ogata | ... | Hidenari Ugaki (voice) |
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Chiyako Shibahara | ... | Eriko Kawasaki (voice) |
Christmas in Tokyo, Japan. Three homeless friends: a young girl, a transvestite, and a middle-aged bum. While foraging through some trash, they find an abandoned newborn. Hana, the transvestite with delusions of being a mother, convinces the others to keep it overnight. The next day, using a key found with the baby, they start tracking down the parents, with many adventures along the way. Written by Jon Reeves <jreeves@imdb.com>
This strikes me as a movie you will either accept whole-heartedly or trash whole-heartedly. It is shamelessly sentimental and is built on a series of absurd coincidences, but the amazing thing is it all works. The coincidences could feel like a shameless plot device but instead there is just a sense of wonderful magic, as though somehow the foundling the movie is built around lives an oddly charmed existence that transforms the lives of those around it.
The movie does a wonderful job of making its characters both broad but human. This is not one of those cheesy movies that make homeless people seem ultimately wiser and nobler than the rest of us, but while they are all deeply flawed they all have a redeeming warmth.
The movie is both very funny and very touching, and is really about the miracle of love in a world of harsh realities. If you're not willing to totally suspend your disbelief and give in to the movie's blatant flouting of all concepts of reality then you'll probably hate it, but if you want a charming fable this is a great choice.