Japan: A Story of Love and Hate

Sunday February 8, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network

A warning from the Japanese economic front offers an unprecedented look at Japan's 'working poor'.

Naoki, 56, had it all in Japan's bubble economy days: he ran a business with 70 staff, drove a brand new BMW, and lived in a 6 bedroom house. But when Japan's economy crashed in the early 1990's he lost everything, ending up divorced (for the third time) and penniless.

He was saved from being homeless by his new girlfriend, Yoshie, 29, who took him in, despite living in a tiny, windowless, one-room apartment.

At his age, the only job Naoki can find is part-time at the post office. Here, part-time means working 7 hours a day and earning just $7,200 CD a year. He is now one of thousands of Japanese who have fallen through the cracks to become a class of 'working poor'. Yoshie now has to find extra jobs to support him: working 15 hours a day in 3 jobs.

Each evening Yoshie leaves Naoki at home to do the housework and heads to a sleazy chat bar, where she is paid to drink, flatter and flirt with married men. Sometimes she comes home drunk and teases Naoki about his poor income. After taking her nightly dose of sleeping pills, she cannot remember anything.

Naoki sees his relationship with Yoshie like father and daughter. He admits since losing his business he has lost his confidence and his ability to have sex with Yoshie. Their life is a love story of survival in the world's second richest economy.

In over two years of filming British documentary filmmaker Sean McAllister offers extraordinary access and returns with an absorbing portrait of inescapable contradictions, of life and the narrow lines love and hate share.