「結婚式ば、せんごとになった」
[The wedding is called off.] 

Kazunari, a struggling actor in Tokyo, returns to his hometown of Saikai City in Nagasaki Prefecture after facing a string of disappointments̶his career is faltering, and his engagement, once the hope of his family and friends, has been called off. Accompanied by his close friend Uehara, he is warmly welcomed by his family, who run a small tofu shop, and familiar faces from the past. Still, he cannot shake the discomfort of failure and drifts through familiar streets that now feel distant. Amid this emotional limbo, he meets Miki, a childhood friend’s relative, which leads him to the ruins of Saikai Paradise, an abandoned amusement park that once symbolized the dreams of their hometown.

With Saikai Paradise (西海楽園), Keiko Tsuruoka offers a fiction that skillfully blends with documentary, as the secondary characters are all relatives of the main actors.

Fact and Fiction

Many of the actors in Saikai Paradise were acting for the first time. The family and relatives of the main actor, Kazunari Yanagitani—his mother, owner of a tofu shop, his centenarian grandfather, and his real childhood friends—deliver beautiful performances in front of the camera, mixing reality and fiction. 

Naturally, this gives the film a slight documentary feel. For example, the beautiful opening sequence shows Kazunari Yanagitani’s mother preparing tofu. This scene clearly demonstrates the importance of details to the director in her way of showing reality. It is reminiscent of the sublime lacquer scenes in her previous film Tsugaru Lacquer Girl (バカ塗りの娘).

The way other scenes are shot borrows heavily from cinéma direct. The camera is there, still, capturing the exchanges between characters as they talk about everyday things. We discover the Nagasaki region and the small town where the character comes from. We even forget that it is, in fact, a work of fiction.

A little more…

Saikai Paradise (西海楽園) is a slow, almost relaxing film. You let yourself be transported to this place, and for anyone who has ever left their small hometown for the big city, this film will touch an inner chord and make you feel connected, as if it were about you. 

Even if we are far from typical cinema with a story and a hero, anyone can appreciate the experience. Especially since it is a story of a difficult breakup and how loved ones succeed or fail at helping the one suffering from shame forget their pain. 

Saikai Paradise (西海楽園) is presented at the VIFF on September 9 and 11, 2025.

Trailer