ACF 947: Video tribute to quake refugees

Linda Hoaglund, noted filmmaker and Japanese translator emeritus, has been in Japan during the recent natural disasters. She emailed me about this amazing video tribute to the quake refugees from a South Korean filmmaker.

Hoaglund has posted trilingual lyrics to the beautiful anthem here:
http://anpomovie.com/en/.

ACF 174: Free Screening of "Wings of Defeat" @ Columbia University

(Wings of Defeat poster credit: Edgewood Pictures)

Wings of Defeat / Tokko
2007, 89 minutes
Digital video, color, and black & white
In English and Japanese with English Subtitles

This fascinating documentary about kamikaze pilots who survived World War II will screen next Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 6:00 PM at Columbia University. A discussion with producer/director Risa Morimoto and producer/writer Linda Hoaglund will start at approximatley 8:00 PM, following the screening.

Ms. Morimoto, born and raised in New York, was surprised to learn that a beloved uncle, dead for several years, had been trained as a kamikaze. Having never questioned that they were fanatics, she was now faced with the puzzling question of why her good-natured uncle had wanted to become a kamikaze.

(Photo credit: The National Archives and Research Administration)

Her efforts to resolve this conflict led to interviews with family members, other surviving members of the Tokkotai (as the Special Attack Force pilots referred to themselves), and with survivors of the U.S.S. Drexler, a destroyer that perished in a kamikaze attack. Those interviews form the core of this extraordinary and fascinating documentary.

From it emerges a far different view of the Kamikaze than the conventional one. Here they are seen for the most part as young men who saw this as a duty that one had to fulfill, though they did so with no great enthusiasm.

Takeo Ueshima as a member of the Tokkotai

(Photo credit: Takeo Ueshima)

Wings of Defeat will be shown at the Altschul Auditorium, International Affairs Building, 4th Floor,118th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Admission is free and no reservations are required

Campus map showing the location of the International Affairs building here.

This screening is part of the Soldiers and Soldiering in Twentieth-Century Japan lecture series sponsored by The Weatherhead East Asian Insititute.

My full review of Wings of Defeat appeared in AsianCineFest 088, Monday, March 17, 2008. I also wrote about it, and about Ms Hoaglund (who is most widely known as an outstanding translator of Japanese film dialogue) in the current issue of Asian Cult Cinema magazine, issue #60.

The Wings of Defeat website can be accessed by clicking here.

ACF 082: "Wings of Defeat" at Japan Society

Photo Credit: The National Archives and Research Administration

Wings of Defeat is a touching and enlightening feature-length documentary about Japanese aviators who were trained to be Kamikaze pilots but survived World War II. Director/producer Risa Morimoto, who was born and raised in New York, came to make this film after learning that a beloved uncle had been one such pilot. He had been dead for several years by the time she learned this, and she sought to reconcile her image of him with the far different one of Kamikazes as suicidal fanatics.

Preceeding the screening on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008, there will be a reception at 7:30 PM. Ms. Morimoto, writer /producer Linda Hoaglund (a renowned translator of Japanese film dialogue), two former Kamikaze pilots that are featured in the film, and a survivor of the Kamikaze attack that sunk the U.S.S. Drexler will be present for the reception and for a Q&A session after the screening, which will begin at 8:00 PM.

The 2007 film is in English and Japanese with English subtitles and has an 89 minute running time.

I've watched a screener DVD and will have a full review posted before this screening, which promises to be a fascinating and emotional evening.

For further information at Japan Society's website, click here.

ACF 078: Early Postwar Japanese Films

"Pu San" copyright 1953 Toho Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University

in conjunction with the

Donald Keen Center of Japanese Culture

presents:

OUT OF THE ASHES
Early Postwar Japanese
Movies

Defeated, occupied, and largely in ruins, the Japan of the years after the end of World War II was the subject of numerous films, both during those years and later. Some outstanding examples are featured in this series which has been curated by renowned translator Linda Hoaglund, who has subtitled some 200 Japanese films.

(Ms. Hoaglund also recently wrote and produced Wings of Defeat, a feature documentary about flyers trained to be suicide pilots who survived the war. Wings of Defeat will screen at Japan Society Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 8:00 PM. For info or to order tickets for it, click here.)

The five films that will be screened separately at Columbia University from February 26 to April 15, 2008 are:

Children of the Beehive (1948)

Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
- Registration required. See below.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Davis Auditorium, Columbia University
- No registration required

Doctor’s Day Off (1952)

Directed by Minoru Shibuya
Monday, March 31, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
- Registration is required. See below.

Pu San (1953)

Directed by Kon Ichikawa
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
- Registration required. See below.

Black River (1957)
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

Tuesday, April 15
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
Film followed by brief intermission and then a Panel Discussion
- Registration required. See below.

Fukasaku's Battles Without Honor and Humanity is the only film I've already seen. It's a gritty work about yakuza rivalries that stars Bunta Sugawara. It became the first in a lengthy series. It and four other films in the series are available on DVD, both individually and as a box set entitled The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor & Humanity.

Admission for each screening is free, but for the four that require pre-registration, you must R.S.V.P. for each individual film.

For more information, film descriptions, or to R.S.V.P. click here.