A scheme for interactive video manipulation and display of a moving object on a background image is disclosed. In this scheme a background image stored in a background image storage unit is read out and displayed on a screen, and a manipulation target spatial position is set on the screen. Then, a partial image to be synthesized and displayed is uniquely specified from partial images which are set in correspondence to spatial positions on the background image and representing an object moving on the background image, according to the manipulation target spatial position set by the setting step, and the partial image as specified by the specifying step is read out from a partial image storage unit, and synthesized and displayed at the manipulation target spatial position on the background image. A scheme for realizing a variable speed video playback with a playback speed different from a normal one is also disclosed.