Director: Rikiya Imaizumi
A bento stand in a sleepy seaside town becomes an unlikely gathering place in Call Me Chihiro, the 2023 Japanese drama built around a magnetic lead performance from Kasumi Arimura.
What is Call Me Chihiro about?
Chihiro sells rice balls from a small stall and says little about her past, yet everyone who crosses her path seems to leave lighter than they arrived. A grieving widow, a lonely schoolgirl, and a runaway boy each find their way to her counter, and director Rikiya Imaizumi lets these small encounters build into a portrait of a woman who once worked in the sex trade and now offers something closer to quiet care. Nothing about the film rushes toward a twist; instead it lingers on meals shared, half-finished conversations, and the town's slow rhythms, trusting the audience to sit with people who are simply trying to get through their days.
Cast & crew
Kasumi Arimura carries nearly every scene as Chihiro, playing warmth without sentimentality, while Hana Toyoshima and Ryuya Wakaba give the surrounding townspeople real interior lives. Veteran performers Lily Franky and Jun Fubuki round out a cast that treats the town itself as a character.
Context & significance
Rikiya Imaizumi, known for character-driven Japanese ensemble dramas, adapted the film from Hiroko Ando's manga of the same name. Running just over two hours, it belongs to a specific strand of contemporary Japanese cinema that favors patient observation over plot mechanics, closer in spirit to slow-cinema classics than to conventional melodrama.
Where & how to watch
Call Me Chihiro streams on K-Time with a Farsi dubbed track and Farsi subtitles, and the page itself is open to read without an account. Watching the film requires only a free K-Time login, and the entire experience, from search to playback, is built around a Farsi-first interface for Persian-speaking audiences everywhere.