Growing up in a small town called Asahikawa in Hokkaido, Banzai left her hometown in search of a life with a larger meaning. She finds herself stuck in a rut and constantly suffocated in a stifling and tiny country like Singapore - one even smaller than Asahikawa. As nothing goes according to plan, a message she receives sends her on a journey home, forcing her to search for closure from the fears she has been running from, with her days seemingly truly, endlessly numbered.
Tourists, foreigners and outcasts converge on the streets of Osaka in this sprawling ensemble drama by Japan-based, Malaysia-born filmmaker Lim Kah Wai. His eighth feature explores the lesser-known aspects of the Asian melting pot city through the eyes and experiences of a dozen characters who struggle to find their place in society: among them a Nepali refugee with dreams of opening a restaurant, a Burmese student struggling to make ends meet while working two jobs, and a Taiwanese sex tourist who travels to meet his favorite adult video actress.
Nitobe and Sakamoto are childhood friends who now work at the front desk of a capsule hotel. Nitobe has a particular fondness for philosophy and crustaceans. Sakamoto, meanwhile, is fixated on suicide. The capsule hotel draws a variety of guests, including a Finnish mother who has lost her child, a fugitive woman, and a researcher studying Daphnia. None of their lives ever intersect. They exist, but never cross, like cells in a capsule hotel. The themes of life and death are explored through a fragmentary view of the characters’ lives.
Suzuki Rara is left behind in the countryside due to mischief. She becomes a YouTuber, goes both crazy and offbeat. Wearing an eye-patch, loose track pants and often holding a sledgehammer she begins interacting with the locals, families and visitors.
