General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Ravine of Goodbye

The Ravine of Goodbye (さよなら渓谷, Sayonara Keikoku, literally "Goodbye Valley") is a 2013 Japanese drama-mystery film directed by Tatsushi Omori, adapted from Shuichi Yoshida's 2008 novel of the same name. It follows a child murder case in a wooded ravine and the investigation that exposes a hidden bond between the victim's neighbor and his wife: fifteen years earlier, the wife had been the victim of a gang rape committed by the man she now lives with.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Japanese title / romaji	さよなら渓谷 / Sayonara Keikoku¹
Director and screenplay	Tatsushi Omori; screenplay by Ryo Takada and Omori, from Yoshida's novel¹
Release	June 22, 2013 (Japan); distributed by Phantom Film¹
Runtime	117 minutes per the Japanese Film Database; 116 minutes per IMDb and eiga.com¹^•³
Principal cast	Yoko Maki (Kanako), Shima Onishi (Shunsuke Ozaki), Nao Omori (Watanabe), Anne Suzuki (Satomi Tachibana)¹
Major award	Special Jury Prize, Competition, 35th Moscow International Film Festival (2013)¹
Acting awards	Yoko Maki: Best Actress at the 2013 Hochi Film Awards, 2014 Kinema Junpo Awards, and 37th Japan Academy Prizes⁴
Age rating	R15+ in Japan⁵

Spoilers

Plot

In a green ravine far from the city, a young child is killed and the mother, Satomi Tachibana, is arrested as the prime suspect. The case appears closed until an anonymous tip reveals that Satomi was having an affair with her next-door neighbor, Shunsuke Ozaki, who then falls under suspicion as an accomplice. The person who reported the affair to the police is Kanako, Ozaki's wife.²^•⁶

Watanabe, a weekly magazine reporter covering the case, is struck by the couple's life in the ravine, where they live with only the bare necessities as if hiding from something. His investigation uncovers that fifteen years earlier, when Ozaki was a promising college baseball player, he took part in a gang rape, and that the victim in that case was Kanako, the woman who is now his wife.¹^•²^•⁷ The film's central question is what binds a victim and a perpetrator who choose to live together, and whether atonement hidden from public view can count as atonement at all.⁸

Production and source novel

The film adapts Yoshida Shuichi's novel Sayonara Keikoku, published in June 2008 by Shinchosha Publishing after serialization in Weekly Shinkancho (週刊新潮). Yoshida has said the story grew out of a real case and a photograph of a female suspect surrounded by a wall of large, intimidating male reporters before her arrest; he wanted to write the physical fear a woman would feel in that situation. The novel's ravine setting is based on Okutama, in western Tokyo.⁹

Director Tatsushi Omori, whose 2005 debut The Whispering of the Gods had already drawn acclaim abroad, had built a career on films about violence and the outer limits of human behavior. He co-wrote the screenplay with Ryo Takada. Nao Omori, who plays the reporter Watanabe, is the director's younger brother.¹^•¹⁰^•⁵

The ending theme, "Sakiwazaka" (幸先坂), was written and composed by musician Shiina Ringo and sung by the lead actress, Yoko Maki.⁵

Reception and awards

At the 35th Moscow International Film Festival in 2013 the film competed for the Golden St. George and won the Special Jury Prize, along with a Special Mention from the Russian Film Critics. Japanese trade commentary noted it was the first Japanese award at Moscow since Takeshi Kitano's special award in 2008.⁴^•¹¹

Yoko Maki's performance as Kanako, built on suppressed emotion rather than outward display, earned Best Actress honors at the Hochi Film Awards (2013), the Kinema Junpo Awards (2014, shared across her roles in other films), and the 37th Japan Academy Prizes (2014). The film was also nominated for the Kinema Junpo Best Film award.⁴

The film screened internationally at the 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival (Dragons & Tigers program, its Canadian premiere), the Japan Society's JAPAN CUTS in New York (its North American premiere, July 2013), and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival's World Panorama section.¹^•²^•⁷ It was released theatrically in Taiwan on March 21, 2014 under the title 再見溪谷.¹²

Critical response was divided on execution rather than subject. Reviewers consistently singled out Maki's performance and the film's refusal to reduce its characters to a simple victim-and-perpetrator schema; the Flixist review called the Ozaki-Kanako relationship one of the most interesting screen relationships in years while criticizing the journalist subplot as an unnecessary second protagonist thread.⁸ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 69% Tomatometer from a single counted review, and IMDb users rate it 6.7/10.¹³^•³ A scholarly textual analysis in New Voices in Japanese Studies examined the film alongside DV: Domestic Violence (2005) as an example of how narrative and cinematographic technique can lead viewers to reflect on their attitudes toward rape and rape victims.¹⁴

Home media

King Records released the film on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan on January 10, 2024 as part of its budget Japanese-cinema line, priced at ¥2,750 (Blu-ray) and ¥1,755 (DVD) including tax.¹⁵^•¹⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026