A feat for all concerned, ALONE ON THE PACIFIC was a great critical and popular success and ranks among Ichikawa's most important films. Based on the true story of a young Japanese, Kenichi Horie, who crossed the Pacific alone on a small craft in 1962, the film is visually and physically imposing. Destined to take over his father's garage, Horie makes plans to do something no other Japanese has managed: sail solo from Osaka to San Francisco. A classic Ichikawa obsessive and "lone wolf", Horie is driven less by heroics or ideals than by sheer will, a kind of mania. (One critic called the film "a masterly study of individual obsession.") The Scope images of the small boat adrift on the vast ocean are majestic in themselves, but also suggest one of Ichikawa's defining themes: the isolation of his driven protagonists, ALONE ON THE PACIFIC became the surprise hit of the Cannes Film Festival, and in its rave review, The New York Times called it "the most disarming entry of the New York Film Festival." "Uses the wide screen to magnificent effect . . . genuinely moving" (The Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide).