We never dreamed she would do something like this. Naomi Fujiyama, Etsushi Toyokawa, Michiyo Ogusu, Kankuro Nakamura, Ittoku Kishibe, Hiroyuki Sato, Jun Kunimura, Riho Makise. Junji Sakamoto, Isamu Uno. In Japanese with English subtitles. The frumpy Japanese woman drearily approaches middle age from behind the antique sewing machine upstairs from her mother's dry-cleaning shop.
Mom says so too.
As she steps out of the decrepit dry cleaners after the murder, we get a sunny day, bright colors and an incongruously upbeat old jazz tune. Also giving her a happy boost is the terrible Kobe earthquake, which causes mass confusion just when she needs to make her getaway. At first, she is able to evade capture just because she's beneath notice. But her flight from justice is also a personal awakening, as she makes the real friends she never had in her little room above the Kobe dry cleaners. Yet, emerging as a human being brings her closer to capture and she's forced to cut short her newfound friendships when she feels the law on her trail.