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Shining Boy & Little Randy / Hoshi ni Natta Shonen 星になった少年 tells the true story of Tetsumu Sakamoto, who left for Thailand at an early age to train to become an elephant trainer, or a mahout. In doing so, he learned to overcome obstacles such as language and culture; and to better communicate with elephants. He eventually returned to become Japan’s first Thai elephant trainer, and dreamed of creating a paradise or refuge for elephants in Japan. Unfortunately, he died when he was only 20, in a traffic accident.

The movie is based on the book writen by Tetsumu Sakamoto’s mother. It stars Yuya Yagira (Nobody Knows / Daremo Shiranai 誰も知らない) who won the Best Actor award in 2004’s 57th Cannes Film Festival for Nobody Knows. It also features Yu Aoi (All About Lily Chou-Chou) and Takako Tokiwa. What I also loved in the movie was the music that was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. I can’t seem to find the OST anywhere; but the music can be sampled with iTunes Music Store.

Watch the movie trailer on YouTube or Apple. Live performances by Ryuichi Sakamoto of the title song can be found on YouTube.

As many scenes in the movie were filmed in Thailand, the Randy Foundation was set up in aid of the tsunami event that hit several countries on 26th December 2004. A portion of proceeds from movie ticket sales were donated to UNICEF. It also struck me that today (26th December 2006) happens to be exactly two years after the unfortunate event.