Hubert is a French policeman with very sharp methods. After being forced to take 2 months off by his boss, who doesn't share his view on working methods, he goes back to Japan, where he used to work 19 years ago, to settle the probate of his girlfriend who left him shortly after marriage without a trace.
On the first day of school for third-year junior high student Nakahara Sawako (Kitano Kie), her father (Haba Yuichi, Off Balance) announces that he is quitting his teaching position and absolving from all parental responsibilities. For Sawako, this is only the latest episode in her family's parade of problems. Three years ago her father attempted suicide, and since then, things haven't been quite the same, with her mother (Ishida Yuriko, Miracle in Four Days) moving out and her studious older brother (Hiaraoka Yuta, Be With You) giving up school. Amidst the family drama, Sawako finds her own balance, working hard in school and developing a romance with cheerful transfer student Oura (Katusji Ryo, Aegis). But more obstacles lie ahead, changes that will throw her already fragile life further awry.
Ayami, who works in the marketing department of an advertising agency, is about to turn 30 and is beginning to think that she would rather live her life for work than marriage. Just then, she meets Kurasawa, who works at the same company, and they soon find themselves drawn to each other.
Based on a short story written by Shuhei Fujisawa (who also wrote Twilight Samurai, The Hidden Blade, Love and Honor), the film depicts the uneasy life of Noe Isomura (Rena Tanaka) with the difficult family she has married into after her former husband passed away. One day as she tries to brake off a branch of a cherry tree, she is aided by a samurai who she does not recognize but who recognizes her. He turns out to be a former suitor that she never met named Yaichiro Tezuka (Noriyuki Higashiyama) and who teaches swordsmanship to the local samurai. Meanwhile, the powerful new chief retainer of the village enacts land policies that threaten the survival of the local farmers.
