What's so special about it? - Peter Greenaway

Counting is the most simple and primitive of narratives -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -- a tale with a beginning, a middle and an end and a sense of progression -- arriving at a finish of two digits -- a goal attained, a dénouement reached.

... [I] would certainly like to work with Dennehy again. When he was presented with the script he didn't know me from Adam, and why should he, small-time eccentric, esoteric Englishman that I am?

The film begins with a visual list of eight and a half Japanese Pachinko Parlours filmed in several Japanese cities -- Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto.