that port town is onomichi! very special in japanese cinema as the setting for a lot of home-grown period pieces, will be most familiar to american audiences for tokyo story
and nobuhiko obayashi (the HOUSE guy) also filmed his last movie ever there, labyrinth of cinema:
i’m also quite partial to the town myself, having spent a few days there over the course of a few trips:
i’ve talked about it a few times on this forum because i love it so much and want to share that love. i encourage everyone to visit onomichi if you ever find yourself in japan. might be a good time to re-plug this thread, too:
mise en scene en scene