Shiro the White (1999)

• 80%
• 1999
• Documentary
• Katsuyuki Hirano

It all began on December 1st, 1998, on a dune in Shizuoka. A man and his bicycle. Ready to take an adventure 2,328 km long. His name was Hirano Katsuyuki. He was 35 and headed for the Sukoton Peninsula, the most northern point of Hokkaido and Japan itself. Latitude 45 degrees 27 minutes 45 seconds north. The means of transportation: a bicycle. Would he make the impossible possible? Hirano arrives in Sendai on December 21st. A severe stomach-ache turns out to be appendicitis. He is hospitalized for an emergency operation. On the 38th day, January, 7th, he leaves Sendai riding along the twisting and winding Sanriki Rias coast. On the 69th day, February 7th, he lands on Hokkaido Island. What waits for him is the biggest snowstorm in eight years. Frozen white, there is no distinction between the road and the fields. There are no cars. He is the only person visible as the blizzard blows across the landscape. Everything has frozen, with the temperature at 20 degrees centigrade below zero. It is only a question of how much longer he can take it. No assistants. Just Hirano himself. He bicycled across Hokkaido Island in the freezing cold winter. The danger. The odds. The adventure. This is a spectacle. This is not an adventure film. This is a film adventure.