Nobody wants to live a life of adversity, but it does have a way of bringing people together. “Trophy,” Son Myong A’s drama about the modern experience of Japan’s ethnic Korean residents (referred to as Zainichi in Japanese), captures a minority group that no longer faces the overt discrimination suffered by earlier generations. And that’s kind of the problem.

Sanju (Arata Iura), the principal of a North Korea-affiliated elementary school in Tokyo, only has to look at the meager student intake to realize that community ties aren’t what they used to be. The school can’t even raise enough money to get its toilets fixed. At home, money is so tight that he’s had to give up smoking and drinking — and now the washing machine is on the fritz.

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