Shinichi Tsuda, a Naoki Prize winning author, is working to publish his newest story. It revolves around Tsuyama, a driver for a call girl business in Toyama Prefecture, who comes across a mysterious counterfeit bill and has his life targeted by underworld kingpin Kurata. Is his story fact or fiction? His editor, Nahomi Torikai, decides to verify whether his latest work is mere fiction based on real-life experiences. She looks into a family that vanished, a post office worker who went missing, a shady load of cash, the whereabouts of the doves, and the fateful encounter from that night... A series of shocking facts are revealed from Tsuda’s stories. Why did the counterfeit money end up in Tsuda’s hands? What is the “ending” that Tsuda wished to portray?
Writing
Script weaponizes ambiguity—every 'fact' is a potential lie.
Acting
Fujiwara's dead-calm arrogance makes you root against your own curiosity.
Direction
Takahata frames rural Toyama as a character hiding bodies in plain sight.
Director
Hideta Takahata
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Naoki Prize is Japan's most prestigious popular fiction award; naming Tsuda a winner in-universe signals he was already 'approved' as a liar worth trusting.
Toyama Prefecture's actual history of rural isolation and post-war black markets informs the film's uneasy authenticity—this counterfeit economy has real roots.
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