Innocence, tenderness, poetry, and grace blend together in this film written, directed and acted out by Japanese comedian Takeshi Kitano. It is summer time and young Masao is all on his own in town. These are school holidays, his coach has called off the football training sessions, and his friends are off to the beach. Masao lives alone with his grandmother, and, to a nine-year-old, things could not be more dull. With a photograph and an address in hand, he decides to go in search of his mother whom he has never before seen; lack of money, however, and no sense of direction, do not allow him very far. Not all is lost, though: a friend of the grandmother's asks her husband (the irresponsible Kikujiro) to go along with the boy in his search.

     An afternoon in a gambling den is the first of a series of adventures experienced by this improbable twosome: a journey marked by laughter, tears, amusing surprises, and strange characters. Nothing will ever be the same again for young Masao in his discovery, over the course of his holidays, that life consists basically of magic.