We are big fans of Japanese actor Koji Yakusho - best known to western audiences thanks to his role in Babel - around here, enough so that anything he's involved with is worth at least a mention. His latest film is Satoshi Isaka's adaptation of Yusishi Akamoto's novel The Back of the Elephant, in which Yakusho plays a businessman diagnosed with a fatal illness.

Just for curiosity, a 48-year-old real estate company project department chief, Yukihiro Fujiyama (Koji Yakusho) goes to a hospital for a check- up. The diagnosis he is given by a doctor there, however, is a stunning one; he has got terminal lung cancer and will die within half a year. Yukihiro declines to get any life enhancing treatment. Instead, he determines before he dies, to go to see some people he has not met for years, and to write farewell letters to his family, relatives, friends and acquaintances.

The official website is now online and includes a trailer.