Ride Forward on Your Bicycle
(“Jitensha de ikou”)
2003 / Japanese / Color / Video (Original: 35mm) / 115 min
Director, Script, Narrator: Sugimoto Nobuaki
Photography: Minami Yukio
Editing: Muramoto Masaru
Sound: Ochiai Tomonari
Music: Terashima Takuya
Sound Editor: Takizawa Osamu
Producers: Komatsubara Tokio, Sumita Nozomi
Production Company, Source: MONTAGE
Pumyong is the salesman of a workshop for the handicapped. He pedals his bicycle around supposedly to advertise and sell merchandise made there, but . . . Along the way he drops by several places where he knows people: a takoyaki (grilled octopus dumplings) stand, a coffee shop, a workplace with fork lifts. He twists the staff members of the day care center House for Potatoes and Kids and the film crew around his little finger, and rides around Ikuno in Osaka indifferent to those around him.
[Director’s Statement] In this country, where money has become the only way to solve complexity, Li Pumyong runs around without resentment. He is not a cheerful young man, but he lies in wait to realize his desires. For that purpose he will do anything, but he has made up an unwritten rule. Nobody can imitate him. But even if I can’t, I am proud to have met him.
Sugimoto Nobuaki
Born 1956 in Niigata, Sugimoto Nobuaki worked as an assistant director at Gentosha under the helm of director Higashi Yoichi and producer Maeda Katsuhiro. Works include The Butterfly Flies—Forest (1987) and Mirage Theater (1992). He is a producer and director of visual art, and he has contributed work to exhibitions in museums and elsewhere. |