Review

‘Ashita’ is a very different bomb movie compared to those we have watched in class.  It depicts the life of Nagasaki people before the bomb was dropped, instead of the sufferings and effects of the bomb. 

In ‘Ashita’, the anti-war message is very strong.  Although almost everyone in the film had a very happy day on the 8 August, their happiness was not complete.  Their loved ones were not around because of the war: Shoji and Yae were holding a simply wedding ceremony and most of their friends could not come to share their joy; Tsuruko was giving birth to her first baby but her husband was not around.  Akiko even has to separate with her boyfriend as he received the Call from the military.  

All the happiness was obscured by the war, and the director also included some foreigners, the American David and the two Koreans, to show that the war not only destroying Japan, but their allies and enemies as well.  The director was tried to make the Japanese realized that they should not only have pity on themselves because the bombs were dropped on their land, they should also be sorry because their countries chose to participate in the WWII.  This idea of reminding the Japanese that they were both victim and assailant in WWII is also included in 'Gojira' (1954), while it came out because of the continuous testing of nuclear bomb, it also released radioactive fire to destroyed Tokyo.

The director also shows nihilism in the film – there is no hope, no happy ending, just like ‘I live in Fear’ (1955, Akira Kurosawa) and ‘The Man Who Stole the Sun’ (1979, Kazuhiko Hasegawa).  No matter how perfect the day was, there was no future, nothing good would be left, because the bomb would destroy them all.  The film ends with the footage of the atomic bomb and the date and time when the bomb exposed.  The director probably wanted to remind the audience what shown before were not all fabricated, those things did really happened.  The director did not include any after-bomb scenes, so that it allowed audience to imagine themselves what would happen to the characters.  This probably could bring forth a greater impact to the audience than filming an afterward. 

Through this film, the director also wanted the audience to treasure every chance we have today.  Just like Shoji’s stepfather said, “no one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.  I should do what I can do today.”  The stepfather knew how to treasure because he once faced the death of his loved one, Shoji’s mother.  He understood that human’s life is so fragile that it can be gone in a sudden.  However, as Shoji was so young when his mother passed away, he did not learn the lesson.  If he knew there would be no tomorrow, he would not hesitate to tell Yae about his mother.  

Although the film ends in such a nihilism way, there is a scene which gives a little comfort to the audience.  It is the movie that Haruko watched.  The man said that even he only lived with his father for a week, he was still very happy because it was always his dream.  This refers to Yae and Shoji, even they only married for one day, and Tsuruko’, whose baby only one-day-old, they would still feel happy because their dreams fulfilled.