This is a very insipring story of a young master sculptor in Japan, who comes from a long line of celebrated sculptors, and who wants to make a Jizo sculpture for the Myojoin Temple in Hiroshima. Jizo is the guardian deity of children and travelers.
The film travels between Kyoto, where his workshop is, and Hiroshima, where so many innocent people were killed in the terrible atomic bomb in 1945. The temple was on the edge of the blast and many of its sculptures were damaged in the explosion, and are kept in the temple.
Shortly after the bombing the temple started a kindergarten for the surviving children, and it continues to this day. Matsumoto Shukan hopes that the statue he makes will be handled and passed around by the children there, and makes it from camphor wood which is light enough to be convenient.
There are one of two false starts to this project, but eventually Shukan completes the statue, and the temple has provided two scrolls to be placed inside. One is a prayer for peace, and the other handprints of the children. A very moving offering, which will probably not be seen again for a hundred years.
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