English title "The Professor and His Beloved Equation"
On the first day of class a young teacher enters an unruly room and begins his first lecture. To gain the students' attention he relates the story of what probably led him into a life of mathematics.
Told via flashbacks, the young teacher goes back to a time, probably 20 years earlier, when his mother was hired to look after a professor who suffered brain damage in an auto accident. The brain damage didn't harm the personality of the man but limited his short- term memory to 80 minutes. The accident occurred 10 years earlier, in about 1975, up to that point the professor has a clear memory of events.
The movie is tale of the relationship that follows, a simple and straightforward tale. The story is well paced, the mood upbeat. There's quite a bit of baseball in it, a good plot device through which the young boy becomes a friend of the professor and earns a lifelong interest in mathematics.
A central event in the movie is a no-hitter by Yutaka Enatsu of the Hanshin Tigers on August 8, 1973. He pitched 11 innings and, according to the movie, hit a walk-off home run to win the game. (The no-hitter and length of the game have been verified on Japanese baseball sites.) In the movie, the professor asks the boy what Enatsu's ERA is, the boy replies that "he has retired." In real life, Enatse retired in 1984 which fits with the estimated time span in the movie. That's the kind of attention to detail you'll find in the movie.
A good way to pass a few hours - especially when you are trapped in an airliner for 12 hours. (It's better than that, really.) The story is so entertaining that by the time you learn the beloved equation, you'd already forgotten it was coming.
