Railways

About Railways

Railways is a Japanese drama film released on 29 May 2010. The film was produced by Shūji Abe, directed by Yoshinari Nishikōri, and stars Kiichi Nakai and Reiko Takashima. This is the first movie in the Railways trilogy of films.

Website: http://www.railways-movie.jp/

Article

Railways (Japanese: RAILWAYS 49歳で電車の運転士になった男の物語, Hepburn: Railways 49-sai de Densha no Untenshi ni Natta Otoko no Monogatari) is a Japanese drama film released on 29 May 2010. The film was produced by Shūji Abe, directed by Yoshinari Nishikōri, and stars Kiichi Nakai and Reiko Takashima. This is the first movie in the Railways trilogy of films.

Contents

Plot

The movie tells the story of a 49-year-old office worker, who quits his job in Tokyo to become a train driver on the rural Ichibata Electric Railway in Shimane Prefecture.

Cast

Kiichi Nakai as Hajime Tsutsui

Yuika Motokariya as Sachi, Hajime's daughter

Reiko Takashima as Yukiko, Hajime's wife

Tomoko Naraoka as Kinyo, Hajime's mother

Takahiro Miura as Miyata Daigo

Isao Hashizume as the Ichibata Railway chief

Shiro Sano as the Ichibata Railway deputy

Yoshiko Miyazaki as Moriyama, a nurse

Kenichi Endō as Kawahira

Ken Nakamoto as Nishida

Masahiro Komoto as Fukushima, the chief instructor

Tetsu Watanabe as Takahashi, a veteran train mechanic

Kanta Ogata as Yabuuchi, the train driver trainer

Masanori Ishii as Takubo, the railway controller

Matsunosuke Shofukutei as Toyo, the gardener

Film series overview

Railways stands as a prelude to the subsequent pair of films within this cinematic series:

Crossroads (2011)

Known as RAILWAYS 愛を伝えられない大人たちへ (Railways: Ai wo Tsutaerare Nai Otonatachi e) in Japanese and directed by Masatoshi Kurakata, this film focuses on Toru Takishima, a railway driver approaching his mandatory retirement at 59. When his wife Sawako decides to reenter the nursing profession, their relationship faces challenges and transformations.

Our Departures (2018)

Directed by Yasuhiro Yoshida and known as かぞくいろ―RAILWAYS わたしたちの出発― (Kazokuiro) in Japanese, this film follows Akira Okuzono (Kasumi Arimura) as she copes with the loss of her husband. Alongside her stepson Shunya, she relocates to her late husband's hometown and forms an unexpected family connection with her father-in-law, Setsuo (Jun Kunimura). Inspired by Setsuo's career as a railway driver and her late husband's dreams, Akira embarks on a new path by pursuing the same profession.

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Notable quotes

“Every person of any experience in Courts of justice, knows that a scintilla of evidence against a railway company is enough to secure a verdict for the plaintiff. I was once in a case before a most able Judge, the late Chief Justice Jervis, in which I was beaten, I dare say rightly, in consequence of an observation of his: "Nothing is so easy as to be wise after the event."”
— Bramwell, B., Cornman v. The Eastern Counties Rail. Co. (1859), 5 Jur. (N. S.) 658; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904).
“Cases before the Railway Commissioners must not be cited as authorities to us.”
— Bramwell, L.J., Great Western Rail. Co. v. Railway Commissioners (1881), 50 L. J. Q. B. 489; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904).
“a TEN-YEAR-OLD lad in Indianapolis who was arrested for picking up coal along the side of railroad tracks is now in jail. If the boy had known enough to steal the whole railroad he would be heralded as a Napoleon of finance.”
— Chicago News, reported in Locomotive Engineers Journal: Volume 33 (1899), p. 69. This quote has been variously modified and reported with the general sense that a poor or uneducated person may steal something trivial from the railroad and be punished for it, while a wealthy or educated person may steal the railroad itself and be praised. See, e.g., Mary Harris Jones, Autobiography of Mother Jones (with Mary Field Parton; 2004), p. 46: "I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator." The origin of the sentiment is often erroneously attributed to Theodore Roosevelt.
“The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds! You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The railroads are good enough for me.”
— Mark Twain, "The Danger of Lying in Bed", The Galaxy, Vol. 11, No. 2 (February 1871).

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.