movie backdrop
Rail Truck

Rail Truck

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

May 22, 2010

Runtime

1h 56m

Genres

Drama

Original Title

トロッコ

Production Companies

AMUSE, J&K Entertainment, Plenty Co., Torocco

Director

Hirofumi Kawaguchi

Description

A tale of two islands and growing up as a stranger in a strange land, told with an artistry that recalls Hou Hsiao-Hsien at his best. Based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story of the same title (1922), Kawaguchi’s film moves the original early 20th-century Izu Peninsula to present-day Taiwan, where the strength of family ties is singularly put to the test. Yumiko (Machiko Ono), who married against her parents' wishes, has struggled on in stubborn determination since her husband’s death, moving her family from their Tokyo home to the verdant, rural Taiwan village of her in-laws. Her son Atsushi, strongly conscious that in ethnocentric Japan he is "different," is in a state of rebellion against both the society in which he has grown up and his mother. In their new home the family rediscovers the bonds that unite it.