| Karafuto 1945 Summer Hyosetu no Mon | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mitsuo Murayama |
| Written by | Toshio Kaneko (Book) Takeo Kunihiro (Screenplay) |
| Starring | Terumi Niki Yumiko Fujita Kawai Okada Keiko Torii Hiromi Kurita |
| Music by | Seiji Yokoyama |
| Release date(s) | August 17, 1974 |
| Running time | 120 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Budget | 500 million yen |
Karafuto 1945 Summer Hyosetsu no Mon (樺太1945年夏 氷雪の門) is a 1974 Japanese film based on the Soviet Union's military action on Karafuto during the Soviet–Japanese War near the ending of World War II. The movie is set in Maoka (Present day Kholmsk), at the time of a tragedy of the death of nine maidens who worked in the postal telegraph office in the city. Twelve have worked in the office, and on August 20, 1945, nine of them committed suicide.
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The film is set in Karafuto after the Gyokuon-hōsō. On August 15, 1945, the Soviet forces have been able to invade Karafuto. The film also shows what happened on August 20, when the postal telegraph office in Maoka has suspended operations and the nine of the twelve telephone operators have committed suicide by taking Potassium cyanide while the city is being invaded.
Despite the film having been released in many nations, including the Soviet Union, Moscow argued that the film defamed the Soviet Union and Soviet people and would only make people more hostile towards the USSR.[1] The movie was eventually banned after two weeks of distribution in Hokkaidō and western Kyūshū. On August 25, 2008, a Japanese television drama was made called Kiri no Hi which was based on the same historical concepts. However, the television drama caused less of political uproar from Russia than Karafuto 1945 Summer Hyosetsu no Mon due to the movie's insistence to be "fiction" and did not focus on Soviet Army's brutal actions but instead talked about wishing World Peace.
As of July 17, 2010, the film was almost 36 years old at the time of manufacture and was released in theatere's worldwide sequentially.[1]