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© 張曜元

Japan, China / 2025 / 83min
Director：ZHANG YaoYuan

Set in Japan, this collection of short films depicts the harsh realities and discriminatory treatment of immigrant workers from Northeastern China. Shedding light on technical intern trainees, factory workers, and people in illegal occupations, the films capture their struggles to escape a harsh environment.

“Half-Time” follows a Chinese technical intern trainee preparing for the interview to decide the training location, despite the physical and mental pain from debt, torture, and thoughts of their home. “Life Is Snow” captures a man’s conversation with his lawyer after suing his supervisor for irrationally firing him from the bento factory. “Selection” illustrates an ex-professional soccer player from China who tries to get his son to pass the entry test at a soccer club, while working in an unlicensed taxi service in Tokyo. The three short films produced in Japan portray protagonists from Northeastern China provinces (specifically Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang), with Abe Tsuyoshi playing each of them. Zhang Yaoyuan’s striking direction could be seen in the men’s efforts to escape from irrational situations whether that is from law, policies, or relationships.

Director’s statement

"Northeast" was the central theme of my graduation and master's film, and it continues in my doctoral film Half-Time and its subsequent works Life Is Snow and Selection. While shaped by the influence of Japanese Film, it is above all rooted in my own experience. I came to Japan in 2014; it has been eleven years since I left home. An unfamiliar land never truly becomes home, yet my home has, in time, grown unfamiliar. As memories recede, the hometown I carry fades. For that reason, whenever I meet people from China’s Northeast in Japan, I feel compelled to listen to their histories and to know them more deeply. In Half-Time and Life Is Snow, I follow a technical trainee from the Northeast and a war-displaced orphan; in Selection, I focus on the everyday realities of an unlicensed taxi driver from the same region living in Japan. Against the social contours of the Technical Intern Training Program, economic stagnation, and the challenges of multicultural coexistence, I look at the choices and hesitations that arise as “Northeasterners in Japan” search for a place to belong. That, I believe, is the purpose of this collection of short films.