"A fool and his money are soon parted" and all its many variations is a common theme in films, from the heist-of-a-lifetime that ruins so many lives in "Goodfellas" to Gary Cooper handing out his inherited fortune to total strangers in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and then coming to regret it.
Yoshimitsu Morita's "Watashi Dasuwa" ("I Will Give"), though, reminded me more of the 1950s U.S. show "The Millionaire," in which a wealthy industrialist, his face never seen, would have his urbane private secretary deliver a cashier's check for $1 million — big money in those days — to someone the industrialist had researched, but had never met. Instant wealth didn't always lead to instant happiness, but the fantasy the show sold — a stranger at your door who knows your dreams and wants to underwrite them — was a powerful one.
The benefactor in "Watashi Dasuwa," however, is the very visible Maya (Koyuki), who returns from Tokyo to her hometown in Hokkaido just as the TV news shows are reporting gold bars showing up in the mailboxes of ordinary folks. When Maya gives ¥100,000 tips to the two dumbfounded moving guys (saying, "Use it to make good memories," with a Mona Lisa smile) we start to wonder if she is the Ms. Moneybags the media is in a dither about.