Worst By Chance

Only weeks after her first reunion with Kaneshiro in two years, Nanako has committed suicide. Joined by his mother and father at the hospital, Kaneshiro can only at first laughingly wonder out loud whether he too might kill himself. But upon further reflection, he becomes increasing bothered by the fact that Nanako had never seen Korea, the special yet haunting shadow which had hung over their lives throughout their time in Japan. The only solution he can foresee is indeed a radical one which is both socially abhorrent and unparalleled in good intention and sincerity. With the help his friends Yumiko (Nakashima Mika) and Taro (Ikeuchi Hiroyuki), Kaneshiro steals his sister's body from the hospital morgue and with very little resource at their disposal, begin to make the long trek to the town of Hakata, Kyushu, the closest point in Japan to the Korean peninsula, where they plan to somehow buy a place for Nanako on a boat to Korea. The trip is fraught with obstacles, such as lack of money or the fear of being caught with a corpse in the car. Most pressing, however, stems from the fact that the Japanese burial custom of cremation does not require the Western practice of embalming which otherwise staves the onset of decay and putrification. In other words, Kaneshiro and friends must accomplish their task in a very timely manner before Nanako literally decomposes in the sweltering summer heat. Though the trek itself has it own set of difficulties, the most formidable obstacles are faced once they reach Hakata. Out of desperation and the realization that the entire effort may come to nothing, Kaneshiro's nihilism comes into play when he must be willing to lose everything in order to see Nanako off to Korea.