One woman’s face represents the passage of time. Novelist Shūhei Fujiwara's masterpiece is embodied by Baijaku Nakamura.

One cold, winter night in Edo, Seijirō enters an izakaya (bar) looking for warmth and finds a woman wearing heavy make-up. She was Oishi, the daughter of a shop owner who helped young Seijirō and his widowed mother out of poverty. Seijirō wonders what on earth has happened to Oishi to become so miserably unrecognizable. Screenwriter Tsutomu Nakamura and director Akira Inoue, the same duo that worked on Don’t Kill (2021), tells a messy love story between a couple who left their youth behind a long time ago. They triumph over violence – a common occurrence in the Edo period – with reason, sublimating the whole story into a celebration of humanity. One might say this is a perfect example of what Inoue’s jidaigeki really is.

Japan｜ 2015｜ 52min｜ ｜

• ラブロマンス
• ヒューマンドラマ