To Love is about youthful love, and the need for the human rights of Japanese lepers. Mitsu Morita finds love sith Tsutomu Yoshioka, but they separate when Mitsu is diagnosed with leprosy. At the sanitarium, new tests reveal a mistake in her diagnosis. Mitsu has to decide whether to return to Yoshioka or remain with the people she has bonded with. She stays behind to find meaning in the joy of helping others. Until recently, the rights of lepers in Japan was nonexistent. The 1907 Leprosy Prevention Law, revised in 1953, is the basis for isolating lepers, separating them from family, and restricting even marriage, even though leprosy is neither hereditary nor contagious. Although the Leprosy Prevention Law was abolished in 1996, most patients are now too old to return home, and face remaining social prejudices. To Love is a conventional social melodrama, based on Shusaku Endo′s novel The Woman I Abandoned in the story of love, separation, and death. The film also comments on the social irresponsibility which keeps lepers separated and alienated, a situation akin to the current situation of those with AIDS. (Kim Ji-Seok)