Yamamura Animation

A miserly man eats the pits of some cherries he can't stand throwing out. A tree starts growing from the top of his head. He cuts it off; it grows back. After a while, he gives up and lets it grow, but the crowds that gather on top of his head to enjoy the tree (and leave huge mounds of trash) eventually drive him to uproot the tree. This leaves a crater on top of his head, which fills with water, which becomes a popular lake.

Here, everything is The North. This is an account of the people I met in The North. However, my fragmented memory doesn't capture the essence at all.

Koji Yamamura's allegory the immutability of time, love and devotion, and the unbreakable nature of the parent-child bond, into interlacing story.

A hapless country doctor describes with breathless urgency a night-time summons to attend a young patient. Events soon take on a surreal aspect as "unearthly horses" transport him instantaneously to the bedside. The doctor, preoccupied with personal distractions and grievances against those he is employed to care for, fails to find what is revealed to be a vile, fatal wound. He is humiliated by the villagers, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor," and doomed to an endless return trip, losing everything.

Somewhere between calligraphy, embryology and words from beyond the grave, a convulsive poem wraps itself around the Japanese syllable ‘da’ – a breath that could just as well be the first as the last.

One night Mr. K went for a walk with his pet...

Suffering from a severe case of acute rheumatism, an ancient crocodile is no longer able to take care of himself, let alone hunt to stay alive. One day, in despair, really famished and at the end of his tether, the elderly member of the Nile's peaceful crocodile community resorts to a despicable act of pure cannibalism--a merciless deed that would banish him forever from his beloved place. And then, as the outcast swims in the wide open sea, he befriends a 12-legged octopus. But has the old glutton renounced his former self, or could this be the beginning of a real friendship?

This work was commissioned for the 20th Anniversary Edition of the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and made possible by support from the 2016 Champion and Patron Members of Reel Asian. Chinese Zodiac is 60-years cycle by 10 heavenly elements and 12 earthly animals, 20th anniversary is just one third. In this movie appearing and changing into 20 elements from 1997 that was started the festival to 2016.