One phone call. One life. Zero guarantees anyone will listen.
189 is a phone number to call when a child needs to be saved from an abusive situation. Children and adults can call that number, where they will be connected with the nearest child consultation center. Taiga Sakamoto works as a rookie child welfare officer. A girl that he worked with is being sent back to her mother. The girl was abused by her mother and stayed at a shelter. The next day, she loses her life. Taiga thinks about quitting his job. At this time, he receives a phone call from the hospital. A doctor calls him and tells him that a six-year-old girl's wounds looks as if they were caused by physical abuse. The abuser is assumed to be her father, but the girl's father denies any wrongdoing. Taiga and Attorney Shion Akiba try to prove that the girl was abused by her father.
Acting
Yuma Nakayama's hollowed-out desperation as a man drowning in red tape.
Direction
Ikuo Kamon lets silence scream louder than any courtroom monologue.
Director
Ikuo Kamon
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Japan's 189 hotline was established in 2018, making this one of the first films to dramatize its crushing reality. The number itself becomes a character—promised salvation that arrives too late.
Director Ikuo Kamon spent months shadowing actual child welfare officers; the fluorescent-lit offices and stapled paperwork aren't production design, they're documentary precision.
JP
