Secret agents, orphan theater kids, and dead cats — this fever dream has rules.
Teto is a secret agent trainee. Hatoko is a high school student who lives on venting her anger in a combined combative sport gym. On the day Hatoko saw Teto, she runs into cat's suicides. While she experiences a fighting awakening, Teto's superior orders Teto a final examination of infiltrating into a theatrical company, which is composed by orphanage members. Every night, they repeat rehearsing a folktale "Foxed Eyes Torakichi", that modeled legendary outlaw. In a muxture of stage play and costume drama, Teto and the leader build up weird similar figures.
Direction
Gokan's debut blurs stage and screen like nobody's business.
Costume
The outlaw folktale costumes are doing HEAVY lifting.
Director
Hiroshi Gokan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Hiroshi Gokan's directorial debut after years as an assistant director; he reportedly shot the theater sequences in an actual abandoned orphanage.
The 'Foxed Eyes Torakichi' folktale riffs on Japanese outlaw hero archetypes like Nezumi Kozo, but the film deliberately obscures whether the legend is 'real' within its world.
JP
