Sweet Bean

is a 2015 Japanese drama film directed by Naomi Kawase. It is the second film, after I Wish, to star real-life grandmother and granddaughter Kirin Kiki and Kyara Uchida. The film was selected to open the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. It was also selected to be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot Sentaro is a middle-aged man who runs a small dorayaki shop in the outskirts of Tokyo. The shop is frequented by locals and secondary-school pupils alike. When he puts up a notice saying that he is looking for a co-worker, he is approached by Tokue, a lady in her mid-seventies, who states that she has always wanted to work in a dorayaki shop. Sentaro initially rejects her application, afraid that the work would prove too much for the old lady who, moreover, has somewhat deformed hands. However, he is swayed when he tries Tokue's bean paste; its taste and texture are far superior to that of the factory-made bean paste Sentaro has been using. Sentaro asks Tokue to start making bean paste with him, revealing that up until now, he did not actually like his own product. Business begins to thrive, and very soon Tokue also starts serving customers and packaging dorayaki. However, when customers realize that the deformities to Tokue's hand were caused by leprosy, they stop coming, and Sentaro is forced to let her go. Wakana, a school girl whom Sentaro has befriended, eventually suggests that they go and visit Tokue at the sanatorium where she and other patients were forced to stay until the 1996 repeal of the 1953 Leprosy Prevention Law. Sentaro feels guilty that he was not able to protect Tokue against the prejudice of their customers, but she assures him that she is grateful for the time she was allowed to spend at the shop. When Tokue dies of pneumonia a few months later, she leaves Sentaro her own bean paste making equipment, as well as a cassette recording intended for him and Wakana. In it, Tokue stresses that a person's worth lies not in their career, but simply in their being, and also that joy comes from taking in the sensory experiences of the world that surrounds us.