License to Live 1998

Twenty-four-year-old Yutaka Yoshii, Hidetoshi Nishijima, wakes up in a hospital room after lying in a coma for ten years. His family is nowhere to be found; only the man responsible for his accident and the coma visits him and gives him money. Shortly after, he is picked up by his father’s old loner friend, Fujimori, Koji Yakusho, who takes him to his fish farm on the Yoshii family plot.

From here, he is assigned a number of odd jobs around the farm. While physically an adult, Yutaka displays childlike behavior mentally and finds it difficult to adjust to his new life. The most notable moment comes when he is forcefully taken to a prostitute by Fujimori, a scene that highlights the complicated, sometimes controlling dynamic between the two men. He also spends time with his childhood friends from time to time, trying to bridge the gap between memory and present reality.

His family begins to visit him one by one after learning of his recovery. His father Shinichiro Yoshii, Shun Sugata, arrives first and learns that he and his mother have divorced since his coma. His sister is engaged to a man and seems bound for America, and his mother works in a cloth shop. The closest connection remains with his mother, Chizuru Yoshii, Kumiko Aso, who urges him to chart his own path and find a way forward.

Motivated by a longing for belonging, Yutaka decides to reopen their family’s old pony farm on the plot, building up a new one and even opening a small milk bar to sustain the project. Along the way, he encounters the man responsible for the accident again; the man is consumed by envy of Yutaka’s emerging sense of purpose, while he himself leads a fragile and guilt-ridden life as a construction worker. One night, that resentment erupts as the man destroys most of the pony farm in a fit of rage, right before Yutaka. At first, Yutaka tries to defend the space, but he comes to see the farm as a precious childhood memory—a symbol of the family’s bond and a testament to what he has achieved by reclaiming that sense of home.

Fujimori, who had left for a while, returns to find a more mature Yutaka. The pair decide to leave the farm and travel across the country in search of a new life together. A freak accident ends Yutaka’s life, leaving Fujimori to face the aftermath with a sense of quiet contentment about the life they shared. After the funeral, with his family present, Fujimori decides to depart alone, carrying with him the memory of the young man who helped him rediscover a sense of belonging.