My Secret Cache

Shinobu Yaguchi -- who directed such comedies as Down the Drain and Adrenaline Drive -- spins this get-rich-quick caper comedy. Sakiko Suzuki (Naomi Nishida) is a shy, mousy lass with one unusual kink -- she loves counting money. Naturally, she is overjoyed when she lands a job as a bank teller. Yet she soon realizes that counting Yen loses its glamour when you can't keep any of it. She fantasizes about becoming a hostage in a daring bank robbery, if only to alleviate the tedium of her job. Then one day, her dream comes true, as she's spirited out of the bank by a pair of crooks and stuffed into the truck of their car. As luck would have it, the thugs prove to be remarkably bad drivers; during their getaway, they careen off a mountain road and into a valley. Just as the car explodes in flames, Sakiko and the suitcase full of money are thrown free of the wreck. Passing out as she clutches the suitcase, she floats down a mountain stream, and over a waterfall. She comes to by a surprised group of picnickers and quickly surmises that the suitcase -- containing five hundred million yen (about five million bucks) -- has been sucked into an underground grotto. If she some how managed to retrieve the loot, if would be the perfect crime. The police and bank assumed that the dough burned up with the crooks. Sakiko quickly transforms from a mousy oddball to a superwoman. She enrolls at a university expressly to study geology, rock climbing, scuba diving, and anything else that would get her the money. Along the way, she attracts the attention of a lecherous professor (Go Riju) and the ire of his jealous student girlfriend (Takako Kato).~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide