Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers 2005

In a quiet, unassuming world, Suzume Katagura, Juri Ueno, is an ordinary housewife whose husband is sent overseas on business. She clings to routine and small duties, caring for a pet turtle named Taro and keeping in touch with her spouse by phone, while secretly dreaming of a life that could drift beyond the four walls of her apartment. The calm momentarily shatters when an accidental flood forces a plumber into her home, an event that nudges Suzume toward minor chaos and a craving for something more.

Her best friend Kujaku Ogitani, Yu Aoi, lives on the other end of the spectrum—tied to a life that never stops moving, always brimming with the next possibility. Kujaku longs for a glamorous future: a husband in Paris and a house with a view of the Eiffel Tower. The two women share a bond forged in late-night talks and shared fantasies, even as Suzume remains anchored by her own sense of duty and inertia.

One day, while she is navigating a steep stair, a cart of apples unloads and drops a tiny flyer that promises spies. Curiosity overwhelms caution, and Suzume answers the call by stepping into a ramshackle home where an unemployed couple, Shizuo Kugitani and Etsuko Kugitani, run a mysterious operation. The pair appear plain and unassuming, yet they work for a shadowy organization that never names itself. For Suzume, the first rule is simple and almost nonsensical: stay incredibly, utterly ordinary. To help her feel the thrill of being a spy, she even buys a pair of sunglasses that give her a sense of detachment and danger, a small costume change that hides more than it reveals.

As the process unfolds, Suzume encounters Kujaku again in an ordinary moment—lining up for a chance to spin a wheel for prizes, which could include a trip to France. The drawing feels bittersweet: the two friends miss out on the grand prize, but the modest fishing trip they win becomes a brighter focal point for Suzume, who discovers that ordinary life can still hold surprising, even joyful, moments. She explains that she can never say no to Kujaku because of a childhood memory when Kujaku cut the village power to let Suzume glimpse her childhood sweetheart, Kato, in his pajamas, a reckless act that ended with a painful sting for Suzume.

The fishing trip is abruptly cut short when a body surfaces in the water. An unnamed faction outside their world notes that the corpse does not belong to a Japanese person and may be a spy, triggering a broader investigation into the existence of more agents. Meanwhile, Suzume finally meets Kato, only to discover that he is bald, a detail that unsettles her in ways she hadn’t expected. They meet again the following day, but Kato’s life is complicated: his son arrives, pulls him away, and Kato disappears from Suzume’s sight and life.

Before long, the spies are contacted by their government through their own network and ordered to return to their homeland. Suzume is told to bid farewell to friends and family, for she may never see them again. Kujaku, however, has vanished, and the mysterious group pressures Suzume from outside her door. As Suzume contemplates shredding her old life—an act symbolized by tossing Taro the Turtle into the river—she finds herself drawn into a moral crossroads: her duty to the mission and her care for those she loves.

The tension escalates as witnesses report on Suzume’s face, and artistic impressions of her begin to flood the media. When the order finally lands to send the spies back, the group’s presence in the city becomes impossible to ignore; escape routes close as patrols tighten. In a final, desperate act to ensure the others can return home safely, Suzume repeats the gesture Kujaku once used—cutting the power—creating a brief, shared moment of vulnerability and resilience that binds their fates.

At the rendezvous point, Shizuo, Ryō Iwamatsu, tells Suzume that the authorities recommend she remain at home. The truth behind the operation unfolds when an elderly woman on a bench—revealed as the leader of the entire mission—opens a trap door beneath her seat, signaling the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Suzume waves goodbye to each friend as they step inside, stepping into a future where nothing is certain but the bonds she formed.

The film closes with a poignant twist: Kujaku has achieved her dream of living in France, gazing out at the Eiffel Tower from a prison tower, while Suzume walks away, hopeful yet resolute, ready to come to Kujaku’s aid if the chance ever arises. The world she returns to is not the one she imagined, but it carries the weight of every choice she made and every risk she took to protect a friend. In the end, the ordinary life she once feared may become a platform for extraordinary acts of loyalty, courage, and quiet endurance.