They put up a judo dojo where the men could toss one another around, a kitchen to prepare sushi and tempura, rooms to teach ikebana flower arrangement and language classes and a quiet garden to honor the veterans who served their new homeland in World War II and Korea.

Imagine a cross between bonsai trees, ikebana arrangements, and Disney's California Adventure: Each work offers a variation on Brancusian interdependence of sculpture and base, consisting of a tortured outcropping of faux rock--roughly hewn and pieced together from bits of scrap lumber--and functioning as pedestal or shelf for tiny handcrafted trees.

There are intimations of another country in the film--an old sensei teaching ikebana, chanting monks at a temple.