An aging fisherman boards a bullet train to Tokyo when he learns his estranged son is gravely ill. But at the hospital, his son refuses to see him. His daughter-in-law urges him to watch a videotape of a documentary his son was filming in rural China. Moved by what he sees, he vows to complete his son's work. Though laden with obstacles, his odyssey into the heart of China and the kinship he develops with a fatherless boy and the villagers who care for him recaptures a sense of family he thought he had lost a long time ago. Directed by Yimou Zhang and starring Ken Takakura, Shinobu Terajima.