With his short-brimmed hat and carefully trimmed goatee, Kenji Uchida looks strikingly like the private investigator played by So Yamanaka in "Unmei Janai Hito."

In our interview at the headquarters of Pia -- the media company whose Pia Film Festival launched his career -- Uchida looked faintly bemused by the attention his success at Cannes had brought him -- or was that fatigue at his umpteenth media interview for the day? His laugh, though, verged on a teenage boy's giggle -- and came in reassuringly frequent bursts.

I saw the film twice -- once wasn't enough (laughs). Was that your intention -- to make people want to see the film again and again?