Mom and Dad decide to divorce and their kids try to bring them back together — it's a familiar story here, on screens big and small. And it's not hard to understand why: The kids nearly always succeed, making for a happy ending. Veteran hitmaker Yoji Yamada uses it for his first comedy in two decades, the upcoming "What a Wonderful Family!" ("Kazoku wa Tsuraiyo") and his choice is sound — in terms of the box office, anyway.
Koki Fukuyama's "Children of Iron" ("Tetsu no Ko"), the opening film at the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival in 2015, takes the opposite tack: Mom and Dad have just married and the two kids they had with previous partners — Dad's daughter and Mom's son — decide to break them up. Cue laughter?
Fukuyama co-wrote the original script with Kaori Moriyama, and his offbeat story is more naturalistic drama than family comedy: The two children — Rikutaro (Taishi Sato) and Mariko (the single-named Mau) — take their break-up plan seriously indeed.