JOURNEY TO THE BRIGHT KINGDOM

Winthrop works the Japanese folk tale of Kakure-sato, an underground mouse kingdom, into the sentimental story of a blind woman and her loving daughter. The woman, introduced as a young wife who paints in the field when her husband goes off to work, was told the folktale in childhood and has always been intrigued by it; but she gives up on life after going blind and only regains her spirit after her daughter makes friends with the mice and arranges a visit to their kingdom--where, for the duration of the visit, nobody is deaf or mute or crippled or blind. Winthrop's grafting works better than Mikolaycak's mix of Japanese mannerisms and maudlin poses, but it's an inauthentic sob story regardless.