Interview with friends

I watched the movie together with my Japanese friend Natsuko. She is from Kokura, Fukuoka.

After watching the movie, first thing she thought is "This movie is very Japanese."

In Japanese culture, being too direct is seen as not-thoughtful and too pushy. This film never really have direct theme or message, we just keep on watching people's life for an hour, and suddenly the bomb exploded.

Also, this movie ends very hopeless. Audience watch character's personal life for more than an hour, but it makes it meaningless because bomb exploded. In the end of this movie, no good would come out. She said this kind of film cannot be found in Hollywood.

She said the message she get from the movie was that Atomic bomb destroys everything and no good would come out. Those who died in A-bomb are not special, they are just ordinary people with ordinary lifetime events, only difference is that they lived in war time period. The place she grew up, Kokura (in Fukuoka prefecture) was the initial target of A-bomb. A-bomb was supposed to be dropped on Kokura at first, but because of the weather condition on that day, they decided second target, Nagasaki, was better. Thus, she said this movie really made her to think that it could happen to anyone, including her ancestors.

She also mentioned something about Korean soliders in the movie.

In her point of view, the director, Kuroki, put this scene in the movie to be more realistic. These days Japan tends to be seen as victims, because "we are the only country who suffered from A-bomb" is quite often emphasized. However the truth is Japan is not victims, or not only victims. (in her point of view, in war, everyone is victim) She thinks that Kuroki had this thought in his mind, that's why he didn't show only Japanese lives but also Koreans.

She understands Kuroki wanted to put this in film, but she just thinks 100 minitues is too short for that and he needed more time if he wanted to show Korean soliders scene, or he had to cut some of scene with Japanese characters.

Overall, she said that this movie makes us to condemn war for taking innocent people's lives, and we should remember that it can happen to anyone.