With Nichiyobi Wa Owaranai (Sunday's Dream), Yoichiro Takahashi has risen to the top ranks of a new generation of Japanese film-makers. Born in 1963 in Tokyo, he joined the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) after graduation.

His persuasive documentaries and short films, particularly Yoko (1992) and Violent Teacher (1996), paved the way for the subtle and visually expressive exploration of raw emotions in his feature debut, Fishes In August (1997), which won the New Directors Prize at San Sebastián in 1998, and the Grand Prize at Thessaloniki. Based on a novel by Natsuo Sekikawa, it was a poignant, lyrical story about an outsider forced to compete in order to prove his worth, win the respect of his chums on the swimming team and attract the attention of the girl he's fallen in love with.

Takahashi's years at NHK also opened the door to telefeature production, shot on HDTV ­ the format chosen for Sunday's Dream, his second feature.

A story told in the past and the present, Sunday's Dream was scripted by Ryo Iwamatsu, a dramatist renowned for his ability to sketch striking details of human behaviour and psychological relations. Although a tragedy, the story has its comic moments. Kazuya ­ Kenji Mizuhashi, the lead in Fishes In August ­ is once again a bad-luck kid. First, he gets fired from his job by his father, who is required by the company to make workers redundant. Then, when he goes to live with his mother, she evicts him because she plans to remarry.

A ray of hope enters his life, however, when Kazuya meets Sachiko at a local "sex salon" and makes a date for the following Sunday. His Sunday dream, however, has to wait years for fulfilment, for on the day the two are to meet, the distraught boy kills his mother's new husband in a fit of violent rage. Several years later, Kazuya leaves prison to start a new life and decides to look for Sachiko to rekindle the emotions of that fateful Sunday.

Ron Holloway