Danchi No Yume (Dreams of the Projects)

Plot Summary

On the south side of Kyoto, tucked away from its ancient temples and tourist sites, lies a 40 building low income housing project. Mukaijima New Town, as it's known around the city, is home to poor immigrants, gangsters, drug addicts and lost children. Most residents of Kyoto simply ignore it, many don't even know it exists, but now, one young man is fighting to change that. Danchi No Yume (Dreams of the Projects), tells the story of Anarchy, a young man born into a hidden underworld of yakuza gangsters, immigrants and low income families struggling to survive in a strict Japanese society. To overcome his despair at being raised in a single parent household, Anarchy turned to the streets of Mukaijima and found others like him. They created a new family for themselves, a family of friends. Each have their own circumstances but they all share the common bond of being outsiders in a rigid society that ignores its underbelly with a cold indifference. Anarchy and his friends, with no money or resources, turned to Hip Hop to band themselves together and to express their pride and despair. Anarchy became the example for forgetting your woes and immersing oneself in the explosive culture of hip hop, where all you need to participate is a voice and a dream. The rags-to-riches success stories of other Hip Hop artists like Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Eminem, serve as the inspiration and template for their own salvation. They will stop at nothing to achieve similar success and bring respect and honor to their home, Mukaijima. After many years of perseverance, the cultural trends in Japanese media are shifting. Once unthinkable, a lower class kid from the projects is making noise on a national level through Hip Hop. We follow Anarchy as he embarks on his quest to record his first album, Dream and Drama, and then brings it to the people of Japan through relentless touring and live concerts.