In 1962, a frail-looking, weather-beaten sloop bobbed under the Golden Gate Bridge, a lone young passenger on board. "Where're you from?" called guests on a nearby yacht. "Japan," came the startling reply. Alone on the Pacific, based on the best-selling log book of Kenichi Horie, recreates his incredible ninety-day journey from Osaka to San Francisco. The story would naturally attract Ichikawa-a story of the buoyancy as well as the loneliness of the human condition. Ichikawa distances us from any notions of pathos with a running commentary that is not above using animation to make its points. As the dreamy but indefatigable youth, Japanese film star Yujiro Ishihara imbues the crusade with passion and a certain obsessive dottiness. Courageously attacking hopeless meals (brown rice cooked in beer); fearful lest a passing airplane try to rescue him; in flashbacks, battling with his obdurate family; or weeping at the awesome ferocity of a storm at sea, Ishihara/Horie is quite convincingly alone on a very imposing (CinemaScope) plane. (JB)