NYAFF 2026 Review: Magical Secret Tour

It shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone to say that the global economy tends to favor the rich and powerful. Average citizens across the world struggle against systems meant to help them while soulless ghouls who have far too many zeros at the end of their bank account balances get to bend society to their whims. Sometimes, it makes you wonder if crime is the only answer to success and stability. If there was just a way to pull it off without getting spotted, couldn’t we all be rich?

That’s kind of the premise of Magical Secret Tour, a crime thriller comedy from director Chihiro Amano. Known for holding a lens to societal issues plaguing Japan, her latest film is something of a mixture of Breaking Bad with slice-of-life anime. It follows a group of three women who have encountered a rough patch in life that needs a quick solution. In desperation, they turn to gold smuggling to make ends meet, but then get in way over their heads.

It's a fascinating premise for a movie, especially with its feminine slant, even if it occasionally stretches believability too far.

Magical Secret Tour
Director: Chihiro Amano
Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Japan), July 11, 2026 (NYAFF)
Country: Japan

Putting a spotlight on gold smuggling issues that became a big problem for Japan between 2017-2025, Magical Secret Tour starts in 2017 with the backstory of a woman named Wakako (Kasumi Arimura). A mother of two, her husband mysteriously falls ill at a gambling parlor one day and when Wakako heads to the hospital to check on him, it’s revealed that he lost his job several months earlier for embezzling company funds. Required to pay back something like ¥150,000 almost immediately, Wakako is at a loss until she receives a mysterious call offering her the opportunity of a lifetime.

Quickly shuffled on a plane to Singapore, Wakako inadvertently joins a smuggling operation that buys gold at lower rates in Singapore, smuggles them into Japan to avoid paying tax, then resells them at pawn shops for profit. One trip can net upwards of ¥100,000 if done quietly, making it a pretty easy ticket to amass cash. While there, Wakako meets two other women with similarly desperate situations: Kiyoe (Haru Kuroki), a researcher who has had her project stolen and her named wiped from it, costing her job advancement opportunities; and Mayu (Sara Minami), a single pregnant woman who has had her money stolen by her deadbeat mother.

Inspired by an incident in 2017 at the Chubu Centrair International Airport where six people smuggled gold into the country, Magical Secret Tour makes it clear from the jump that society doesn’t play fair to those of us not lucky enough to have been born rich. Wakako gets the most screentime of the trio, but all three are battling against a system that not only favors the rich, but prefers men to women. Despite lots of social progress over the decades, Japan (and most of the world, frankly) is still something of a patriarchal country, and while no one could have anticipated Wakako’s husband falling ill, that his boss doesn’t give a crap about her situation speaks volumes.

The film does have a fairly linear sequence of events, but I wouldn’t say it is about story, per se. More than most films I’ve watched at NYAFF this year, Magical Secret Tour is a thematically dense film. It’s fun to see the trio of women hanging out in Singapore and enjoying fine dining, but those moments aren’t meant to progress the plot or anything. They act as a way to build the relationship between the group, strengthening their bond before things take a dramatic turn in the third act. It’s nice to see that each woman has some character flaws, too, instead of painting them as perfect angels who went corrupt because of society.

I dig the second act twist of the ladies cutting out the middle man and going into business themselves, though. It’s pretty damn silly, but engaging because of how well Arimura, Kuroki, and Minami play off one another. The chemistry between the three actors is key to making this film work, especially since the drama can sometimes cross over into melodrama. It doesn’t help that nearly every character who is not the main trio is pretty unlikable, which heightens the drama, but results in a world that feels detached from reality.

When I was discussing the film with my mother after watching, I made the offhand comment of, “Why not defraud the government?” Her response was pretty typical (“Two wrongs don’t make a right”), but our brief chat sums up the movie brilliantly. I’m not one of those “depiction is endorsement” type of people, and the film even ends with a message of Japan enforcing stricter laws just last year, but I could see how some might think this movie is telling them to commit crimes. At the same time, that type of moral dilemma is what makes Magical Secret Tour compelling, because it raises interesting questions about civilization.

Now, that’s not to say the movie is perfect. I don’t think the pacing is the problem here, just that certain segments stretch believability a bit too far. As a review from The Japan Times even mentions, “The film also seems to take place in a world where airports don’t have metal detectors.” I know films are often dramatizations of real-life events to illustrate a broader point, but with how easy these women seem to get away with their crimes, I have to wonder if a stricter dose of reality might have sold the tension better.

Most of my issues with this film would fall under the category of nitpicking, however. I can’t fault Amano for amping up the implausibility when it results in a fun movie with a solid message at its center. A couple of tweaks could have turned it into a must-see sensation, but then I’m sure it will wind up a personal favorite to a specific type of filmgoer. I’m certainly glad I watched it, if not for how fun it was, then for how dense it wound up being.