ILHA FORMOSA

To address the social crisis, Chiken - a buddhist monk - throws himself into various tasks such as a suicide helpline, in his temple in Yamanashi. In Fukushima, his old mate Ryûgyô - whose temple was wrecked by the tsunami - lives in a portacabin and works on construction sites.

Seiji works on construction sites. He sympathizes with Hosaka just back from Thailand. Together, they spend their evenings in bars with Thai girls. On a construction site, they meet Takeru, a member of the hip-hop collective of the city.

Bangkok, 2015. Ozawa, a Japanese man who had nowhere to go, meets Luck, a woman has reached the height of her glory on Thaniya Street, a place that flourishes by servicing only Japanese men. Through a trip to trace the scars of colonialism, they look for paradise that we had lost.

Hisashi was once a member of a motorcycle gang. Now he plays pachinko everyday with his live-in girlfriend, Junko. He has a habit of "huffing" paint thinner. His debts accumulate every day. Hisashi's old friend from the gang, Ozawa is a loan shark. He persuades Hisashi to join his easy-money-making.

In some lonely countryside, or more precisely, in the smaller district where the word “community” still fits perfectly, there is an old temple with a red rusty roof. The temple is called Kôun’in whose roof has a tale passed down from ancient times. The tale is based on the myth of dragon god: Once upon a time at a brumous crack of dawn, all kinds of snakes magically flocked to a waterfall. As soon as they merged into a single huge serpent, it started to fly up heavenward. But when it incarnadined his body with the red color of the roof, it transformed itself into a rising dragon.

An fantastic anthology made by Katsuya Tomita, Masanori Tominaga and Tetsuya Mariko for the 4th Okinawa International Movie Festival in 2012.

Kin-chan is a struggling actor in his forties who hasn't quite made it big yet. He's married with children, but his relationship with his family seems strained. To earn some pocket money, he takes on a dubious photo shoot, where the photographer tells him about the wonders of Thailand. He grabs the surprisingly large sum of money and lands in Bangkok with only the clothes on his back. Thailand is so captivating that it makes him forget his life in Japan. After spending a fun night with May, a street girl, he ends up traveling to Chiang Rai with May and her friend Fong. A Japanese man who barely speaks the language and two women, each with their own agendas, set off on their journey north.