Final Rating: 4/5
Shikoku Island in Japan is host to a multi-site pilgrimage of 88 Buddhist temples associated with the monk Kukai (also called Kobo Daishi), the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism. Pilgrims walk or bike approximately 1200 kilometers, usually over a period of 30 to 60 days for a variety of purposes.
Aruku – whose title means “I walk” in Japanese – follows four such pilgrims, exploring their experiences, motivations, and thoughts about Buddhism and pilgrimage. Director Shiho Kataoka crafts a meditative film that feels brisk despite its slower pace, inviting the audience to reflect alongside the film’s subjects.
The film opens by following Hiroe Nagai, a young pharmacist from Kyoto. Frustrated with her work, Hiroe left her job to come to Shikoku before determining her future career path. On the advice of her pilgrim mentor, Hiroe approaches the pilgrimage as a silent, solitary exercise.
Scattered interviews give insight into Hiroe’s anxieties about her life: her dissatisfaction with her job, her hopes of becoming a mother, and her short temper. Outside of those interviews, Hiroe remains reserved, footage largely following her from behind and from a distance. Instead, long sections of Hiroe trekking through forests and country roads encourage introspection and sitting with the little we learn about Hiroe’s life.
Hiroe is also the only woman profiled in the film. Almost diametrically opposite Hiroe is Mukoh Miyama, a retiree who boasts that he’s done the pilgrimage 35 times, averaging 11 times a year. In that time, Mukoh has developed a system, completing each pilgrimage in a series of loops while camping in a large van. Along his journey, he’ll perform smaller acts of community service: picking up trash, trimming large weeds, cleaning up roadkill.
A third pilgrim is Li Kai, a Chinese man undertaking the pilgrimage for religious reasons. Li is enamored with the monk Kukai after having seen his story depicted in a movie as a child (likely Junya Sato’s 1984 film Kukai. Through walking in the monk’s shoes, Li seeks to learn more about Shingon, himself, and his role in the world as a Buddhist.
The pilgrim with the largest amount of screentime is Shoji Takaoka, a young man from Tokyo. Shoji worked at a film production company for three months before being let go and took up the Shikoku pilgrimage instead of immediately seeking a new job. Still fascinated by filmmaking, Shoji records himself in front of each temple yelling the name and number of the temple – often to the surprise of other temple-goers around him – with intentions to create a film collage of his journey after completion.
Unlike Hiroe, Shoji sees his adventure as a more social experience, giving director Kataoka opportunities to capture the dynamics between travellers in pilgrim houses, as well as several instances of passersby helping Shoji along the way. Shoji also openly talks about his struggles with his job search and depression, framing the soul-searching of many pilgrims in more direct terms.
Director Kataoka uses the stories of each pilgrim to build an interesting conversation about finding oneself. Each of the pilgrims is at a different stage in their life, but each has decided to undertake an extreme path to self-improvement. For Hiroe, the pilgrimage brings her away from the crushing pressure of a hectic life in Kyoto. For Shoji, it represents a more positive and productive use of his time that would otherwise be spent watching movies and anime. Mukoh has turned his love of the island and its temples into community service. Li is inspired by Kukai’s religious journey and aims to help the world by following in the footsteps of his role model.
In Aruku, Kataoka presents footage as if following four concurrent pilgrimages. However, the film was shot over several years, some sequences dating back to the early 2010s. Near the end, Kataoka returns to her subjects to wrap up each of their stories. While the subjects, presumably, have never met, they are all bonded through their experience with Shikoku Island. Though Aruku only depicts a relatively short amount of its subjects’ time, Kataoka’s film feels as if it captures four complete lives.
Aruku was seen during the 2026 Toronto Japanese Film Festival.
