Kiri no Hi
| Kiri no Hi | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Drama |
| Directed by | Nozomu Amamiya |
| Written by | Yō Takeyama |
| Music by | Takeshi Umōda |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Original channel | Nippon Television |
| Release date |
|
| Running time | 138 minutes |
Kiri no Hi (霧の火) is a Japanese television drama which originally aired on Nippon Television (NTV) on August 25, 2008. Directed by Nozomu Amamiya and with a screenplay by Yō Takeyama, it starred Etsuko Ichihara and Karina.[1] The production won a TV Drama Award at the 2008 Festival of the Arts of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (文化庁芸術祭).[2]
Plot
The story takes place in Maoka City, Karafuto, Japan (Currently Kholmsk, Sakhalin, Russian Federation) during the final year of the Pacific War. Nine telephone operators in Maoka took their own lives by taking potassium cyanide when the Soviet Union invaded the city on August 20, 1945.[3] The TV drama is based on this incident and is partially fictional (names of the characters, etc.).
Cast
- Etsuko Ichihara as Nakamura Mizue (age 82)
- Mayuko Fukuda as Mizue (age 15-19)
- Karina as Inoue Aiko
- Miho Shiraishi as Misa Yamazaki
- Yui Ichikawa as Nakajima Sakura
- Hitomi Satō
- Risa Kudō as Yoshiko Inoue
- Asuka Shibuya
- Ayaka Ikezawa as Akane Kawashima
- Natsuko as Tiyo Sato
- Yūko Natori
- Ayumi Sakamoto
- Osamu Mukai
- Nakamura Shidō
Background
The Soviet Union's invasion of Karafuto is a very sensitive topic and controversial in both Japan and Russia due to the border dispute between the two countries. A 1974 movie titled Karafuto 1945 Summer Hyosetsu no mon (樺太1945年夏 氷雪の門) portrayed the invasion of Karafuto by the Soviet Army that claimed the lives of thousands. However, due to political pressure from the Soviet Union, the Japanese government intervened and banned the movie from being aired and sold.
Kiri no Hi caused less political uproar from Russia due to the movie's insistence as "fiction" and it did not focus on the Soviet Army's brutal actions but instead talked about world peace. At the end, the granddaughter of the survivor of the Soviet Invasion pointed at Sakhalin and said, "Grandma, look, it's Sakhalin", with a big smile instead of calling the island its Japanese name of Karafuto, which hints that the Japanese people are willing to move on with the past and go forward even though they were the victim of the Soviet Army.
References
- ↑ 霧の火 -樺太・真岡郵便局に散った９人の乙女たち (in Japanese). AllCinema. Retrieved 2013-11-04.
- ↑ 平成２０年度（第６３回）文化庁芸術祭賞受賞一覧（参加作品） (PDF) (in Japanese). Retrieved 2013-11-04.
- ↑ 北のひめゆり事件と九人の乙女 (in Japanese). pucchi.net. Retrieved 2013-11-04.