Shizuoka, 1977: a Japan still telling women where they belong, and a young mother who refuses to listen. Fujiko gives birth during a storm and a hospital blackout, and within months her in-laws have taken her baby. She wins her daughter Mari back, and sets out to raise her alone through low-paid work, scarce childcare, and the judgment of nearly everyone around her. Yuki Katayama plays Fujiko at full volume, swearing and laughing her way through what another film would stage as martyrdom. Taichi Kimura builds this female-emancipation story like a rock song: angry, alive, profane, impossible to keep down. FUJIKO took the audience award at Udine's Far East Film Festival, then again at Nippon Connection. It plays like gangbusters.