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Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Foreign

Starring: Sylvie Testud, Kaori Tsuji, Bison Katayama

Released: January 1, 2003

Runtime: 107.0

Popularity Rating: 1.694

France, Japan

Amelie Sylvie Testud
Fubuki Kaori Tsuji
Mr Omochi Bison Katayama
Monsieur Saito Taro Suwa
Monsieur Tenshi Yasunari Kondo
Monsieur Haneda Sokyu Fujita
Monsieur Unaji Gen Shimaoka
Amelie enfant Heileigh Gomes

Directing — Director: Alain Corneau