Yasukuni (Film)

Film

Yasukuni was the title of a 2007 film made by Japan-resident Chinese director Li Ying (traditional Chinese:李纓, simplified Chinese: 李缨, hanyupinyin: Lĭ Yīng). It took 10 years to complete and had been screened at the Pusan International Film Festival 2007, World Cinema Competition Sundance Film Festival 2008 and Berlin Film Festival 2008. and Hong Kong International Film Festival 2008. It also won the best documentary award at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

The 120-minute film took a look at the history of the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, where more than 2 million of Japan's war dead were enshrined. More than 1,000 of them were war criminals, including 14 Class-A war criminals, convicted at the 1946-1948 Tokyo tribunal, among them, Hideki Tojo.

Li Ying stated that the film was a joint Asian project, noting that the cameraman was a Japanese with a relative enshrined in Yasukuni, and editted by another Japanese. It also received 7.5 million yen from the Japan Arts Council in fiscal 2006 as a production subsidy.

Despite the Japanese contribution to the film production, it provoked such strong response from the Japanese right wing nationalists that the initial screenings planned in three cinemas in Tokyo and one in Osaka were dropped, with one of theatre operator, Humax Cinema Inc., citing safety concerns for its female staff. A special preview on March 12, 2008, for Japanese legislators was arranged by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, initiated by a group of conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party members who questioned the film's objectivity and the public subsidy it received.

The film itself tried to provide a balance view, showing not just the well-reported incidents associated with the shrine, but also took an in-depth look at the little-known sword-making tradition at the Yasukuni, with the Yasukuni sword being the film's underlying motif. Serene footages of the last living Yasukuni swordsmith, 90-year-old Naoji Kariya, working on presumably his final creation, interspersed other scenes of chaos filmed at the site.