It will be interesting to see how "The Insider" is promoted when it opens here in May. If it wins a bunch of Academy Awards, then the campaign will be easy, but if it doesn't then the PR people will have to be creative. Most Japanese ad campaigns for foreign films rely on stars, but Russell Crowe, who has already won all sorts of citations for his acting in the film, is still unknown in Japan, and Al Pacino cashed his celebrity check here years ago.

They'll have to push the story, which won't be easy because it's basically a business thriller. Of course, "Jubaku" was also a business thriller (or, more precisely, a bureaucracy thriller), and it made a pile of money last year, but that was a Japanese movie about a banking scandal that the audience could identify with, since the papers have been full of banking scandals for the last five years.

"The Insider," a true story with names named, is about how CBS News, due to financial self-interest, suppressed the testimony of a corporate whistle-blower in a report on the newsmagazine program "60 Minutes" about tobacco giant Brown & Williamson's secret research into chemicals that would make nicotine more effectively addictive, even though the official tobacco industry line was that there was no evidence that nicotine was addictive.

The movie's conspiracy hook is irresistible: A company produces a more dangerous version of an already acknowledged dangerous product in order to increase sales. Add to that a media giant that decides it is not in its own best interest to pursue the story fully. What could be more cynical?

The reason this hook won't work in Japan isn't so much that antismoking messages are diluted here, but that the business cynicism described by the movie in Japan is more like "business as usual."

Last month, Japan Tobacco forced the Health and Welfare Ministry to remove the smoking reduction portion of its Japan Health 21 plan because it would be bad for sales. Japan Health 21 sets forth numerical targets for the nation's health that the ministry hopes to achieve by the year 2010. For cigarettes, the plan called for a 50 percent decrease in tobacco consumption as well as a 50 percent decrease in the number of smokers. After JT made its displeasure felt, the HWM removed the numerical targets, and now the plan says only that people should be encouraged to cut down or quit.

The punch line to this bit of bureaucratic vaudeville is that the public now knows more about the plan than they would have had JT decided not to get all huffy. The Japanese news media couldn't resist picking up on the dumb irony of the situation, despite the fact that they are no enemy of Big Tobacco.

The day after the HWM caved in, all the newspapers covered it, so now everybody knows that the HWM can be pushed around and that when it comes to public policy, business considerations outweigh health concerns.

On the front page of its Feb. 17 evening edition, the Asahi Shimbun described the Japan Health 21 proposals in detail. The goals are almost comically precise, and, obviously, if Japan Tobacco can quash government antismoking proposals by claiming they're bad for business, what's to prevent other industries from objecting to other items in the plan? For example . . .

Alcohol: It's doubtful that brewers and distillers will openly oppose the goal of eliminating all liquor consumption by minors (though it's more doubtful that the target will ever be reached). But they will certainly see the plan to reduce by 20 percent the number of people who consume more than three go (about one-third of a liter) of "nihonshu or its equivalent" a day as a threat to their livelihood. Pharmaceutical companies who make hangover remedies will also have a bone to pick.

Nutrition: Surely, no one will object to doubling vegetable consumption and increasing to 60 percent the portion of the population that eats fruit on a daily basis. And I can't think of any industry that would be hurt by a 15 percent reduction in the number of men in their 20s and 30s who skip breakfast. (The Association of Stand-up Ramen Restaurants?) Still, I'm sure the combined might of Japan's fast-food restaurants and convenience stores can persuade the HWM to remove that goal of reducing sodium consumption to 10 grams a day.

Dental care: The convenience stores, arm-in-arm with manufacturers of sweets, will also be out in force to get the HWM to take the teeth out of its proposal to reduce the number of between-meal snacks for children to "less than three." Dentists, too, for that matter.

Exercise: The plan to increase those portions of the population that exercise at least twice a week to 39 percent for men and 35 percent for women will hardly cause a peep. But what will JR and the other private rail lines, not to mention those ever-suffering taxi companies, say about the loss in fares as a result of the proposal to increase the number of daily steps the average man takes to 9,200 and those the average woman takes to 8,300? "Foul," I imagine.