A kid gets sold to a traveling musician and his performing animals. That's the whole setup. What the film does is transform that abandonment into something unexpectedly tender, finding warmth in the spaces between hardship where a child and a ragged band of outsiders become a family because they have to. The animals aren't cute mascots, they're witnesses to what happens when someone with nothing builds something real anyway.

Based on Hector Malot's novel Sans Famille, this 1970 Toei film tells the story of Remi, a child who is sold off to Vitalis, a traveling musician with a band of performing animals. The adaptation is faithful though compressed. It mixes musical numbers, slapstick and emotional scenes meant to tug at the heartstrings, all carried by very smooth animation, in a drama of adventure and everyday life.