Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe has spent decades in a dull government office, following routines that have left little room for a life beyond work. After learning that he has cancer, the middle-aged bureaucrat begins questioning how he has used his time and turns to Toyo, a younger former colleague, for a different perspective. He eventually chooses a neglected vacant lot as the place where he can make a useful contribution, but getting a children’s playground built means confronting the slow, impersonal machinery of his own department.