Eureka (2000)

Released on: 20th Jan 2000 (Cannes Film Festival)
Length: 3 hr 37 mins
Director : Aoyama Shinji
Script Writer: Aoyama Shinji

Cast:
Kôji Yakusho ... Makoto Sawai
Aoi Miyazaki ... Kozue Tamura
Masaru Miyazaki ... Naoki Tamura
Yoichiro Saito ... Akihiko
Sayuri Kokusho ... Yumiko
Ken Mitsuishi ... Shigeo
Gô Rijû ... Busjack Man
Yutaka Matsushige ... Matsuoka
Sansei Shiomi ... Yoshiyuki Sawai
Kimie Shingyoji ... Mother
Eihi Shiina ... Keiko Kono  

DVD cover

Making a splash at the Cannes and Belgium film festivals, Eureka is one of the best films of 2001. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Aoyama Shinji (My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?), Eureka won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

This 3.5 hours long film is shot in sepia tone black and white. It portrays Sawai (Yakusho Koji), a driver who survives a cold-blooded bus jack along with a young man, Naoki (Masaru Miyazaki), and his sister Kozue (Aoi Miyazaki). After the incident, the three are constantly bothered by the media, and Sawai decides to leave town. Meanwhile, Naoki and Kozue’s mother had some arguments with her husband and decided the leave the household. A few months later their father died in an accident, leaving the two siblings a large sum of financial settlement.

Two years later Sawai decides to return to Kyushu and start afresh. Coincidentally he heard about the two siblings who got involved in the bus jack. When everything seems to fall apart, Sawai left home and seek shelter at the siblings’ house. Not long after that; Akihko; their cousin comes to stay during a break from school. The two siblings have grown up away from the society and don’t seem to be able to converse normally. Sawai acts like a fatherly figure to them, cleaning up the house, cooks for them and do the house chores as a payment for letting him stay at their house.

Now there is a serial killer on the loose and Sawai is again put in the spotlight, but this time as a suspect! In order to get away from the police and the public eye, Sawai converts a bus into a caravan and invites Naoki and his sister to join the tour, jumping into the caravan to escape the dreaded city they call home.

Did you know?

• Eureka is used to express triumph on a discovery
• This film is mainly influenced by the King of the Roads (1976)
•  Aoi Miyazaki and Masaru Miyazaki are also siblings in real life

Soundtrack

• LA CHEBALERESQUE
  (The Horse Riding Of A Titled Lady) In C Major from 25 Music by Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmuller