Japan: A Story of Love and Hate

Naoki from the Japanese city of Yamagata is in his forties and lives in a small oneroom apartment with his girlfriend Yoshi, who is half his age. Before the economic crash in 1992, he was a successful man with a new BMW and several prospering family businesses. In the course of one day, however, he found himself on the street and his family turned its back on him. Consequently, Naoki has changed his lifestyle: he works part-time in the post office and he devotes the rest of his time to housework. Despite this, however, his daily shift amounts to seven hours and Yoshi works fifteen hours a day in three jobs in the non-traditional role of breadwinner. Such differences begin to test their relationship… This film focuses on a side of Japan that we for the most part don't know about. It looks at the everyday life of people earning the minimum necessary to survive. This socially critical documentary paints this society, which is geared towards productivity, in a different light, and shows how shining examples of industriousness can turn into exhausted wrecks. Will Naoki and Yoshi's love pass muster in an era of unrelenting capitalism? (One World)