A schoolteacher learns counterfeiting isn't in the curriculum—but poverty changes everything.
Kageko, a teacher in a small mountain village with a thriving Japanese paper industry, is visited by a former student, who proposes a plan to manufacture counterfeit money. She initially refuses, but eventually decides to join the project for the sake of the poor children in the village and her own mentally handicapped child.
Acting
Mitsuko Baisho's crushing stillness—every refusal hurts.
Direction
Kimura finds beauty in the mundane machinery of crime.
Cinematography
The paper mill's steam vs. cold mountains—visual poetry.
Director
Yuichi Kimura
Mitsuko Baisho
Kageko Sada
Munetaka Aoki
Tetsuya Nakagawa
Yuichi Kimura
Noridonbe Hanamura
Toshiyuki Itakura
Shingo Ohtsu
Masaki Miura
Kenjo Ogasawara
Takashi Ukaji
Masazane Kurata
Jun Murakami
Kiyota Hashimoto
Yasunori Danta
Fumio Toura (as Yasunori Danda)
Shigeru Izumiya
Toyoji Ikemoto
Toranosuke Kato
Toshiya Morimoto
Kenichi Endo
Judge
Itsuji Itao
Prosecutor
Midoriko Kimura
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mino washi paper, the film's central craft, has 1300 years of history and was designated a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2014—making the counterfeiting plot almost sacrilegious.
Kimura cast actual washi artisans as extras; their genuine expertise in paper-making techniques became the film's most convincing special effect.
JP
