FRUITS OF FAITH

KISEKI NO RINGO

By Yoshihiro NAKAMURA

TOHO CO., LTD. - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2013

A biopic about a man's quest to grow 'miracle apples' in Japan.

    • Year of production
    • 2013
    • Genres
    • Drama
    • Countries
    • JAPAN
    • Languages
    • JAPANESE
    • Duration
    • 128 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Yoshihiro NAKAMURA
    • Writer(s)
    • Mini YOSHIDA
    • Producer(s)
    • Hisashi USUI (Toho Co., Ltd.)
    • Synopsis
    • In 1949, in Aomori Prefecture at the foot of Iwaki mountain, Mr. Akinori Kimura who miraculously made the impossible possible was born. He was absorbed in mechanics such as radio, guitar, motorbikes and cars from a very young age. “How do the signals which radios received become sounds?”, “How can this motorbike run that fast?” He had to figure out the answer for his questions. Needless to say, he was into the products of era of high-speed economic growth and not the slightest bit interested in agriculture or apple orchards which were the major business in his home town. Hence, it was the farthest thing from his mind to become a farmer of apple orchards devoting his life. However, one day, his life reached a turning point. He had an arranged marriage with Mieko who was from an apple growing family. After the marriage, he started to help out at the apple orchard alongside his wife's family. Since he had never experienced growing apples, he got absorbed into it by his force of character. However, one day, he found that a pesticide, which had been used at the apple orchard, was poisonous to Mieko’s health. After this, he became determined to take on growing pesticide-free apples which had been considered completely impossible for apple orchards by many specialists.
      Although he kept making a frantic efforts to farm apples without using pesticide putting in most of his own money with assistance from his father-in-law, not a single apple had been successfully produced in their orchard for almost a decade. People of the village and his friends all started to think he had gone crazy and they labeled Kimura a “KAMADOKESHI”, the worst insult in their dialect which meant “bankrupt”. After ten years of this, he finally felt cornered and went up a hill to commit suicide. Then suddenly a lush wild apple tree caught his eye at the top of an uninhabited hill. “Why would a single apple tree be here on this desolate hill?” he thought. He ran to the tree and finally found out a clue of the miracle!