Toad's Oil (Gama no abura) Trailer (2009)
Foreign trailer for Toad's Oil, which screened at the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival. Toad’s Oil is the Japanese equivalent of snake oil, the kind of patent cure-all remedy hawked by quack doctors in traveling shows in days gone by. It survives as a childhood memory in the mind of stock market day-trader Yazawa Takuro, whose already chaotic life is turned upside-down when his beloved son Takuya is knocked down in a traffic accident. As Takuya lies in a coma, his hopelessly immature father finds himself cast as a surrogate dad to Takuya’s hulking buddy Saburo, fresh out of borstal--and as surrogate lover to Takuya’s girlfriend Hikari, who takes his telephone voice for Takuya’s. Subsequent complications include a roadtrip to Osore-zan (“Mount Fear”) in Aomori, home of spirits, demons and four-leaf clovers, and several imaginary encounters with an old-time travelling medicine show. There’s a lot of emotional hurt for this Toad’s Oil to cure...