One Million Yen Girl

Written and directed by Yuki Tanada, one of Japan’s most promising young directors, One Million Yen Girl tells the story of 21 year old Suzuko (Yu Aoi) who gets into trouble with her co-workers in her part time job and ends up in jail. Coming out of jail, living with her parents no longer seems like an option. Suzuko takes on various jobs: cleaning offices,delivering newspapers, saving up a million yen to embark on a journey, she finds herself in a seaside resort and takes on a temporary job working in a guest house. A local boy falls for her, but she has made a promise to herself that she will leave for another town once she saves up a million yen, and she quickly does as she packs her small suitcase and skips town.

Suzuko’s next destination is a peach plantation deep in the mountains, where she finds a job at a farm run by a single middle-aged man and his mother. The villagers ask Suzuko to become a “peach girl” as part of a campaign for the village, but when she confesses that she has a criminal record, the villagers turn against her and she decides to leave town quietly. Next she arrives in a small city not too far from Tokyo and lands a job at a gardening shop. Nakajima (Mirai Moriyama), her coworker and a college student, is gentle and sweet, and the two fall in love. But when Nakajima hears of Suzuko’s rule to skip town once she saves up a million yen, their future is in doubt.