Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust

Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust

Release Date:  2/10/2007
Country of Release:  Japan
Length:  116 minutes
MPAA: 
Medium:  Video
Genre:  COM SF
Release Message:  When a brilliant female researcher accidentally turns an ordinary washing machine into a time machine, the Japanese government convinces her and later her estranged daughter, Mayumi (Ryoko Hirosue) to travel back to 1990 and reverse the nation's economic demise.
Description:  Japan is in dreadful economic trouble. The government hatches a bizarre plan - they approach bar hostess Mayumi whose mother invented a time machine and vanished in 1990 trying to prevent the decision that led to the current crisis. Now they want Mayumi to go back to 1990, find her mother and save the country from financial ruin. When a brilliant female researcher accidentally turns an ordinary washing machine into a time machine, the Japanese government convinces her to travel back to 1990 and prevent the announcement of landmark fiscal policy that triggered the nation's economic demise. But the mission hits a snag when the researcher disappears, forcing the government to send her estranged daughter, Mayumi - a debt-ridden bar hostess and the only other person the time machine will accept - back in time to find out what happened. Mayumi arrives at the peak of Japan's "bubble" economy and finds a society obsessed with material wealth and profligate spending. With her warnings of impending doom falling on deaf ears, Mayumi's frustrated efforts to find her mother suggest some kind of conspiracy at work at the highest levels of government. Her own future and that of Japan itself begins to hinge on her ability to recruit the help of one man: the same finance bureaucrat who sent her through time. The problem is, he's 17 years younger and completely unreliable.