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TERMINAL

KISHUTEN EKI TERMINAL

By Tetsuo SHINOHARA

TOEI COMPANY, LTD. - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2015

It has been 25 years since a lawyer lost his precious lover. Without knowing why she disappeared from him, he lives alone in Hokkaido in the burden of sin he could never forgive himself. One day, he meets a young girl. Will this encounter lead to the departure of his new life?

- Year of production
- 2015
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Budget
- 3 - 5 M$
- Duration
- 119 mn
- Director(s)
- Tetsuo SHINOHARA
- Writer(s)
- Shino SAKURAGI
- Cast
- Koichi SATO, Tsubasa HONDA, Machiko ONO
- Producer(s)
- Shohei KOTAKI (DESTINY INC.)
- Synopsis
- The city of Kushiro stands on the easternmost tip of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Here, in this locale of short summers, Kanji Washida (Koichi Sato) works as a lawyer. For 25 years he has taken nothing but court-appointed attorney cases, and lives alone in a tiny, run-down house. As a former judge, this is a kind of life sentence.
  
  Twenty-five years ago, when he was a judge with the Asahikawa District Court, a woman appeared as a defendant in a drug case. This was Saeko (Machiko Ono), with whom he was living at the time. She had supported him through law school, but on the day he was to pass judgment on her, she disappeared.
  
  At a completely unexpected re-encounter with her ten years later, Kanji’s life changed dramatically. By this time he had a wife and daughter in Tokyo, but with his love for Saeko rekindled, their affair came back to life. With a transfer to the Tokyo High Court due in six months, Kanji came to a decision.
  ‘I want to quit being a judge, and live with you.’
  
  But after he announced this to Saeko in anticipation of a life with her, she said goodbye forever, taking her own life right in front of him. Desolated, he fell into an abyss of guilt. Abandoning both job and family, he climbed on a train and rode it to the end of the line, ending up in Kushiro.　
  
  Since then, Kanji has practiced law alone, sending money to his ex-wife and child. Living an austere lifestyle, working from home, he avoids contact with others, and his only relief from the sense of sin that pervades his existence is the daily cooking he does for himself. The recipes clipped from the newspaper every day form the diary of his life.
  
  Now he meets Atsuko (Tsubasa Honda), accused in another drug case. She reminds him of Saeko, and as time goes by she begins to warm to him as well. They come together over ‘zangi’, a Hokkaido style of deep-fried chicken. They happen to share a meal, her face softens at the zangi he has made, and she offers a heartfelt ‘It’s good.’ This is the first time that Kanji has had anyone over to his place for dinner in many years, let alone been taken by his cooking. There is a meeting of souls beyond that of lawyer and client. For Kanji, it is as if time has started again.
  Before a man locked into his loneliness as if in atonement for a crime, an angel has appeared. By his unexpected intrusion into her life, he sets himself on the path to a resolution of his own.