Teaching kids is usually not thought of as a physically taxing job, but take it from one who has done it: It is, especially in Japanese schools, where one teacher may have to deal with 40 bundles of not-always-well-behaved energy. I spent much of my class time at a Tokyo boys' high school in the 1980s walking or standing, since sitting behind a desk or even on it would have left me too far out of touch with the students, who often needed individual attention — or discipline. And then there was the light but constant labor of handing out work sheets, collecting homework and writing on the blackboard.

In Ryuichi Hiroki's new drama "Daijobu 3kumi (Nobody's Perfect)," the teacher hero, Shinnosuke Akao (Hirotada Ototake), does his job in a fifth-grade classroom with one handicap that makes all of the above harder: He was born without arms and legs. Based on Ototake's own autobiographical novel of the same title, the film seemingly lends a documentary fidelity to the author's own experience, especially since he plays himself on the screen. (Hiroki told me that without Ototake the movie could not have been made, period, since a CGI Akao would have been unthinkable.)

Actually, there has been some fictionalizing around the edges, particularly in the story of Yusaku Shiraishi (Taichi Kokubun), a childhood friend turned school board member who supports Akao's quest to teach and even serves as his classroom assistant.