Italian Premiere | In Competition
Japan, 2024, 110’, Japanese
Directed by: Takeuchi Hideki
Screenplay: Tokunaga Yuichi
Cinematography (color): Tanigawa Shohei
Editing: Matsuo Hiroshi
Music: Face 2 fAKE
Producers: Hara Kimio, Kumagai Yu
Executive Producer: Koiwa Hiroshi
Cast: Abe Sadawo, Ashida Mana, Nagano Mei, Satoh Takeru
Date of First Release in Territory: December 13th, 2024
Japanese films, especially ones at the commercial end of the spectrum, often deliver shout-outs to the salarymen and other organization types in the audience, who may self-deprecatingly call themselves hatarakibachi (worker bees) but are also described, more sympathetically, as kigyo senshi (corporate warriors). One smash-hit example was Anno Hideaki’s 2016 Shin Godzilla, in which scientists, soldiers and government officials united to save Japan from the existential threat of Godzilla. Salarymen in the seats cheered their gung-ho Team Japan spirit.
Something similar happens in Cells at Work!, Takeuchi Hideki’s fantasy/drama based on Shimizu Akane’s manga about the workings of the human body. But Takeuchi, whose comedies Thermae Romae (2012) and Fly Me to the Saitama (2012) delighted the Udine FEFF audience, makes his mini-lectures about T-cells and macrophages entertaining and easy to understand, even if you hated high school biology.
It helps that the cells’ world looks like a glorified version of Disneyland and that they wear color-coded costumes, have clearly defined roles and move as tight-knit groups. It’s not hard to imagine them breaking out into Broadway-style song-and-dance numbers.
Also, watching the two main protagonists – red blood cell AE3803 (Nagano Mei) and white blood cell U-1146 (Satoh Takeru) – work together with 37 trillion other cells to keep the body of a teenaged girl (Ashida Mana) healthy and free from disease, it’s only natural to root for their success. After all, their fight is the fight of your own cells as well.
But poor pixilated AE3803, whose assigned task is transporting oxygen around the body, is constantly getting lost. She also feels inferior to other cells who have more challenging jobs, like U-1146, a valiant fighter against infection who resembles silent-movie star Buster Keaton in his poker face and amazing feats of (wire-assisted) derring-do. U-1146 tells AE3803 he is there to protect her, but privately mutters she’s “pretty clueless.” (Not just “pretty” since thoughts of romance never enter his head.)
Along with AE3803’s struggle to build up her confidence and competence is the parallel story of Niko, the girl whose body the cells inhabit. Having lost her mom to illness at a young age, she is determined to make her deliveryman dad, Shigeru (Abe Sadawo), give up unhealthy habits, from heavy smoking and drinking to slurping cups of instant ramen, that make his overstressed cells fear the end may be near.
Living in a smoky, seedy world that resembles a postwar red-light district, two red blood cells – a bossy veteran (Ryo Kato) and a jittery newbie (Rihito Itagaki) – bond as they struggle to survive Shigeru’s abuse of his body. They are tested to the limit when they find themselves among cells of the anal sphincter – who looks like sumo wrestlers and rugby players – desperately holding back an attack of the runs as an agonized Shigeru drives to a roadside rest area,
Funny as this and other comic scenes are, Cells at Work! is at heart a sincere and surprisingly moving paean to the wonders of the human body, as shown in Niko’s triumph over disease after a near brush with death. And after AE3803, who now knows her way around, and U-1146, who never surrenders in a fight, have given Niko their all. As both would say, it’s just their job.
Takeuchi Hideki
Born in 1966, Takeuchi Hideki joined Fuji TV in 1990 and in 1996 directed his first of many dramas for the network. In 1998 he won the Best Director Prize at the 18th Drama Academy Awards for the series
Just a Little More, God. Takeuchi made his feature debut with
Nodame Cantabile (2009/2010). In 2012 his time-travel comedy
Thermae Romae became the second-highest-earning Japanese film of the year. Both this film and his 2014 follow-up
Thermae Romae II had their world premieres at Udine FEFF. His 2019 comedy
Fly Me to the Saitama was released theatrically in Italy.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2009 – Nodame Cantabile: The Final Score – Part I
2010 – Nodame Cantabile: The Final Score – Part II
2012 – Thermae Romae
2014 – Thermae Romae II
2019 – Fly Me to the Saitama
2025 – Cells at Work!