Kikujiro (1999 Film)

Tough-guy Kikujiro is an unlikely candidate to take a sensitive 8-year-old boy Masac on a quest to find the mother he's never met. But they're off on a trek through contemporary Japan, where they encounter an odd assortment of offbeat characters. The wandering duo's adventure take them on a madcap tour of the Japanese countryside - from the races to an abandoned high-class hotel, to a gangster-infested carnival. Kikujiro is about children's games, and how they make us see exactly what went wrong in our own lives. This film features an original score composed by leading prolific Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi (Princess Mononoke).