Vacation

Vacation is the story of Toru Hirai (Kaoru Kobayashi) a middle-aged bachelor who works as a prison guard on death row and lives with his older sister and her husband. Hirai’s sister is determined to marry him off to a divorced single mother of a 6-year-old son Tatsuya, who is suspicious of his new father. In exchange for a one-week vacation, for a proper honeymoon to get to know his new family, Hirai volunteers to ‘support’ illustrator Shinichi Kaneda (Hidetoshi Nishijima) who is about to be executed by hanging. There is little emotion in the film, apart from the fear that every character is harbouring for the future, until the trauma of Kaneda’s terrifying death. Kadoi shows the hard choices and personal sacrifices the ideal Japanese husband and father will make for his family.
Kobayashi and Nishijima won acting awards at Yokohama film festival 2009.

Thanks to Eleven Arts