Kippei Shina

Alcoholic hi-flyer civil servant, his career falling apart, wakes in a Tokyo park aside hostess with whom he's impulsively made a suicide pact. Tho he's secretly now reconsidered, he will go with her to Hokkaido, where she wants to end it all - her birthplace, fled to Tokyo for independence & making a happy family. Hubby died in accident & she too loses it all. Tho similarly crushed by life the 2 are like oil & water on the surface - can they mix to redeem each other?

Negishi's new film "Sidecar ni Inu (Dog in a Sidecar)" -- a drama about the odd summertime friendship between a timid girl and her father's free-spirited lover, would seem to be a complete change of pace. The tone is lighter and gentler, with the story verging at times on manga-esque fantasy (though it is based on an Akutagawa Prize-winning novel by Yu Nagashima). (japan Times)