Yûnagi no machi sakura no kuni (2007)

"Thirteen years afterward, I wonder if those who bombed Hiroshima are looking at me and saying: 'We did it. We were able to kill another person!' They should be," murmurs Minami (played by ... See full summary »

Director:

Kiyoshi Sasabe

Writers:

Fumiyo Kono (original comic), Kei Kunii (screenplay)

Stars:

Rena Tanaka, Kumiko Asô, Hisashi Yoshizawa

3 wins.

Cast

Credited cast:
Rena Tanaka	...	Nanami Ishikawa
Kumiko Asô	...	Minami Hirano
Hisashi Yoshizawa	...	Yutaka Uchikoshi - young
Noriko Nakagoshi	...	Toko Tone
Mitsunori Isaki	...	Asahi Ishikawa - young
Yûta Kanai	...	Nagio Ishikawa
Ryôsei Tayama	...	Yutaka Uchikoshi - adult
Urara Awata	...	Kyoka Ota
Shiho Fujimura	...	Fujimi Hirano
Masaaki Sakai	...	Asahi Ishikawa - adult
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Asami Katsura
Rina Koike
Miyuki Komagata
Miki Matsumoto	...	(as Jun Matsumoto)
Takayo Mimura

Storyline

"Thirteen years afterward, I wonder if those who bombed Hiroshima are looking at me and saying: 'We did it. We were able to kill another person!' They should be," murmurs Minami (played by Kumiko Aso), one of the two leading female characters in Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni, as she lies dying in 1958, her life brought to a premature end by sickness resulting from her exposure to atomic bomb radiation.This is a story about those who at least initially survived the first U.S. atomic bombing of 1945 and their descendants in contemporary times. Nanami (Rena Tanaka), the leading female character in the contemporary part of the film, is the daughter of Minami's brother, Asahi (Masaaki Sakai), who had evacuated to Ibaraki Prefecture when Hiroshima was bombed. An ordinary 28-year-old, Nanami has no idea about her dad's past or the existence of her late aunts, but she finds out about them when she follows her father to Hiroshima one day, suspicious of his unusual behavior.

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Details

Official Sites:

Art Port [Japan]

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

28 July 2007 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Yunagi City, Sakura Country

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$1,279,172

Company Credits

Production Co:

Art Port, Big Shot, Fukuoka Broadcasting System (FBS)

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

User Reviews

Best Movie of decade

"Yunagi no machi sakurano no kuni" is probably the best movie ever focused on Hiroshima and WWII tragedy. But it is too real and explicit for some American audiences—in another words, it is too offensive for them. Probably that is why I can't find the DVD with English subtitle. Because it is too offensive to the American public, it could cause a friction between two nations. The previous commentator has probably good intent, but he or she is too ignorant. Japan went to war because she could end up a colony where non-white people populate like the rest of Asia if she listened to US demand in the eve of WWII. So she made a choice to go to war to defend her sovereign and liberate the other Asian nations from the oppression of American and European colonists. But during her pass of the warfare and even before, the Japanese subjugated the Chinese and the Korean as the second class citizen while they sent lots of sympathy to the Jew and the Southeast Asians, including to Indians. This double standard caused tragedy and misunderstanding. Just like pro and con, Japan did right thing and also bad thing. We have been under the American's War Guilt information System—the US propaganda since the end of WWII. We have lots of "America Kabures"—Japanese blindly followers on US. Typically, the Japanese loves to talk about the US, but no other countries. Actually, they are afraid of US or very sensitive to what the US thinks about us. As a result, even in Hiroshima, although Americans are the ones dropped the Atomic Bomb, the survivors and the children of the survivors have never publicly condemned the US government or the American populace. It is hypocrisy. This movie clearly stated that those wished me to be dead and it took 13 years to kill me. It is obvious that those are the Americans. That is why this movie has significant impact on people who have good conscience. Again, this movie is made extremely well. I highly encourage you to distribute this movie DVD with English subtitle.