It's Only Talk

(Yawarakai Seikatsu)
35mm/ 126min /color / american vista / Dolby SR /HD
Producer: Akira MORISHIGE / Director: Ryuichi HIROKI / Cinematographer: Kazuhiro SUZUKI / Screen Play: Haruhiko ARAI Cast: Shinobu TERAJIMA / Etsushi TOYOKAWA
©2005 It’s Only Talk Production Committee

Seeking a fleeting sense of belonging, a mentally fragile woman drifts through a series of fabricated encounters with broken men in the unpolished fringes of Tokyo.

Introduction

Based on Akiko Itoyama’s award-winning novella Soft Living (Yawarakai Seikatsu), Ryuichi Hiroki’s It’s Only Talk is a quintessential masterpiece of Japanese "Zero-Nippon" cinema. Filmed in the intimate American Vista ratio, this 126-minute character study offers a raw, unpolished look at urban loneliness and the fragile mental landscapes of modern Tokyo.

Set against the gritty, un-chic backdrop of the Kamata district, the film explores the delicate boundary between a person’s public mask and their private pain. Hiroki’s direction captures the tactile "texture" of everyday life—the glow of convenience stores and the quiet hum of a city that never truly sleeps—while posing a haunting question: In a world of fleeting connections, can we ever truly find a "soft" place to land?

Story

Yuko is 35, unemployed, and managing manic depression in the un-chic Tokyo district of Kamata. Between her psychiatric visits, she drifts through a series of fractured relationships with eccentric men, crafting a different persona for each encounter.
She finds a raw, mirror-like bond with Yasuda, a young gangster and fellow manic depressive. Meanwhile, her cousin Shoichi lingers nearby after abandoning his family for a mistress who has rejected him. From a perverted stranger met online to an impotent former classmate, Yuko shifts her identity to fit the needs of the moment. In the quiet void of the city, she desperately seeks a "soft" place to land—proving that genuine human connection is as elusive as the truth itself.