Rail Truck

With the ashes of her late husband, Yumiko Yano and her sons travel from their home in Tokyo to her inlaws' mountain village home in the south of Taiwan. Having been raised in an urban environment, the boys are wide-eyed at the rural scenery. Once there, they meet up with a Taiwanese grandfather who speaks Japanese. Yumiko, who married against her parents' wishes, has struggled on in stubborn determination since his death. Her elder son Atsushi, conscious he is "different" in ethnocentric Japan, rebels against both the society in which he has grown up and his mother. However, in the home of his grandparents who have lived through vast changes in the political landscape and society's values, this extended family discovers the bonds that re-unite them. Setting out on a journey on an old-fashioned hand-powered rail truck, Atsushi discovers a world outside of his family and his school, and moreover, is forced to confront the question of what it means to be both an "elder brother" and a "son".