The new kid in town finds his new friends might know something his father doesn't in this playful comedy from Japanese filmmaker Isao Yukisada. Ryunosuke Kusunoki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a boy from Tokyo who moves with his family to a farming community in Hokkaido province, where he soon finds he doesn't fit in. Ryunosuke's difficulties with his new school mates isn't helped by the fact his father (Tomokazu Miura) is a government functionary who has come to persuade a handful of farmers to sell their land so that a new airport can be built. Ryunosuke's father isn't the first man to try to get the local farmers to sell their land, and the landowners don't regard him with any greater friendliness than they did his predecessors. Ryunosuke is frequently taunted by Kohei Tsuchida (Yuma Sasano), whose father is a scientist and the leader of the local opposition to the new airport, but while their parents are increasingly at odds, Ryunosuke and Kohei strike up a friendship through their shared love of pranks. As Ryunosuke slowly begins to enjoy his new environment and the joyously eccentric community around him, he finds he can no longer support his father's desire to tear up the countryside in the name of air transportation.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
