Anyone with aging relatives will know what it’s like trying to find the perfect present for someone who’s renounced earthly attachments and already has all the socks they’ll ever need.
Hiroko Nishimoto came up with an inspired gift for her octogenarian father, Masakatsu, a retired teacher with long-dormant acting ambitions. In 2018, she produced a stage play that cast him opposite his real-life grandsons, Kentaro and Ginjiro, both professional actors. In a dubious display of filial piety, she got her dad to play a corpse, but never mind that: It’s the thought that counts.
“Beiju no Dengon” (which translates literally as “88th Birthday Message”) was enough of a success on its initial run in Osaka that the production moved to Tokyo the following year. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted its momentum, Hiroko kept her father’s spirits up by proposing a screen adaptation. One successful crowd-funding campaign later, the film — titled “My Edison” in English, for reasons that will become clear — arrives in cinemas just in time for Masakatsu’s actual 88th birthday.
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