In Japan, baseball is not a pastime — it's a national obsession.

August 2008 (check local listings)

August 2008 (check local listings )

In Japan, baseball is not a pastime - it's a national obsession. And for many of the country's youth, the sport has become a rite of passage, epitomized by the national high school baseball tournament known simply as "Koshien." Four thousand teams enter, but only 49 are chosen to compete in the championship that grips the nation for two weeks every August. Following two those teams and their dedicated coaches, "Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball" is the first English-language film to take Western viewers inside a world where baseball becomes a proving ground for life's challenges. Only one team will win each year, but the quest to appear on the "sacred" dirt of Koshien Stadium is a life-changing experience for generations of Japanese youth. By Kenneth Eng.