Details:Loyal salaryman Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) loses his job when his company begins outsourcing to China. Incapable of facing the tragedy of his new reality, he hides his failure from his family and, weaving an intricate web of lies, pretends to still be employed. As it turns out, he is not alone in this deception. At home, he tries to maintain the normal routine, though it soon becomes clear that this family has tragically lost touch with one another. His wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi), attends to her chores and keeps up with their two boys, rebellious college-age Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and his quiet younger brother, Kenji (Kai Inowaki). However, nothing feels or looks the same for Ryuhei, who has lost his honour and his place in society. Kenji’s simple request for extra money to take piano lessons tips the balance of the family’s artificially sustained stability, pushing it over a ruinous precipice into an abyss of unforeseeable external events.
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cast: Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyoko Koizumi, Haruka Igawa, Yu Koyanagi, Kai Inowaki
Year: 2009
Runtime: 119 minutes
Country: Japan/The Netherlands/China
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Venue:Lebovic Centre for the Arts and Entertainment
Contact: Kate Gilderdale
Phone: 905.642.5560
Email: gildedale@rogers.com