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Chinese, Japanese, Forgiveness and Remorse #1 - Afterthought of a Documentary Movie ‒ The Ants After Japan’s surrender in 1945, a troop of Japanese soldiers remained in Shanxi, China, fighting for a Nationalist commander in China’s civil war against Communists, also for their Japanese commander’s not-willing-to failure ambition. As well, they were fighting for misinformation. Half of the 2,000 left-behind troop died in war battle. The rest could only came back Japan in 1954, nine years later than their colleagues. Director Ikeya Kaoru’s camera follows Mr. Okumura, an over 80 years old surviving veteran, from Japan to Shanxi,China rushing about his seek-for-truth business. Mr. Okumura and the few remaining veterans sued the Japanese government of putting them deliberately in Chinese civil war. He even goes as far as to Shanxi to collect evidence at his old, weak age. The movie truly records down his unfailing efforts (in collecting testimonies fm unwilling-to-talk insiders, and evidences fm the piles of old files, raising opposition, lobbying and filing allegations to the court, getting dismissal by the Tokyo Supreme Court time after time. It also depicts Mr. Okumura’s personal reflection as a ‘demon’ to his early years’ brutal killings, through his memorial visit to their training yard & battle field. The dialogue btw him and the old former comfort lady (forced military ) in Shanxi is especially. Mr. Okumura never talks abt his war experience, the trauma, w/ his wife; but the old lady talks w/ him her painful experience, she says, “we should talk about it, face it, there’s nothing to hide.” The title The Ants is an analogy, soldiers were ants misled by the ‘Commanders’ of war, each like a nail of a killing machine, murdering the opposite ants ‒ soldiers, or innocent civilians. Mr. Okumura continues his lonely journey of fighting for revealing the truth, “until I die”, he declares. When he presses the die-hard supports of the Japanese Emperor at the Right Wing gathering where they are trying to cover the truth, in no time he is swept over by the crowd, a scene revealing the loneliness and minority of Mr. Okumura and simultaneously prophesizing the helplessness at the end of the movie. **** The movie condemns war, and introspects how war and the fanatical ideology has distorted human nature. At the end of the movie, some young Chinese people clapped their big hands; but, my dear friend, a Chinese woman was very angry to their applaud. She said, it is a shame they clap their hand for this Japanese soldier! I would have shouted to warn them if I sat close to them.! He never showed any remorse to his Japanese Aggression action all through the movie. So naïve the young guys clapped hands. He is just fighting for his own justice fm his government. So, I think, the argument is aboutt remorse. They applauded because they mistakenly took this movie as a Japanese remorse presented by Mr. Okumura and the director; she felt ashamed for this applaud because she thought there’s no remorse fm him and the movie. Do we need remorse? Do we Chinese need remorse fm Japanese? |
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Before i read your post here, i thought he had more personal reflection than remorse. I think it's OKEY. In the documentary, Mr. Okumura never said sorry in meeting w/ those Chinese families whose seniors were killed by Japanese. Thank you, Goan, you remined me: if not for the remorse and self-consciousness, the old/weak veteran wouldn't have visited their killing fields in China; if not for it, he would have given up long ago. But frankly, i dont like the clapping, neither. It's a tragedy, nothing worth cheer for. Slilence and retrospection after the movie is better. And it's unbelievable that truth is still undercover. Many ppl and countries help this.
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Sunshine, That's why China should be always on guard of Japan's resurrected ambition of another war on China and Asia. We shall not depend on their remorse, coz you dont know if the verbally remorse is true and it's easy to fake it. What we need is to build ourselves stronger, for a person or for a country this is correct. W/ our strength we can defend ourselves and have the stand to know where we are going.
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