A twelve-year-old boy and his three younger siblings live all by themselves, totally on their own. The film is not set in a war-torn region or in some poverty-stricken country. It is set right in the middle of Tokyo, the heart of the economic superpower, Japan. How is this even possible? Director Hirokazu Kore-eda was inspired by a real event in 1988 of four abandoned children. He took quite a long time to make it into a documentary film and focused on how this tragedy happened. After his mother leaves all her children including himself, Akira has to take care of the younger ones, Kyoko, Shigeru and Yuki. Eventually, the money from his mother is cut off and the children find their own way of survival. He even overcomes the tragedy of Yuki′s death. Their house becomes a completely isolated space only for themselves. They sustain their lives in a way that nobody could have ever imagined. The camera looks at the children as independent beings and the tiny house as a small universe. Kore-eda does not criticize the society or blame the mother. He doesn′t even talk about social responsibility. He only eyes the children′s survival instincts with a warm heart. He leaves all the rest for the viewers to decide. (Kim Ji-seok)