Movie Review

There is a shrine called Yasukuni in Tokyo Japan today, and it is not just an ordinal shrine. Japanese, chinese and Korean are fighting over this Yasukuni shrine for many years. The fact that it have both war criminals and war victims in the shrine is the main controversial reason. For chinese and korean, praying at Yasukuni shrine means insulting their ancestors and justifying the war. Due to its rich tradition and history however, the shrine still exists in Tokyo, Japan.

The film "Yasukuni", directed by chinese director Li is the first movie which address to this controversy. Although the film was about such touchy topic, I think Li did great job and it is worth to see it.

Most of the part, the film shows what is going on in Yasukuni shrine today. It highlight some of the shocking imagese such as Japanese nationalists marching at shrine in old military cloth, the sense that a Japanese student who was thought as chinese student were beaten by bunch of old people at the shrine, and a American with his national flag driven out from shrine. Also, the film highlights one old sord maker, who used to make sord during the war. The film sometims show the sense of him making sord.

The one reason why I like this film and suggest you to see it is because its openness. Although the film shows shocking images, which could imply sense of Japanese nationalistic, and gives audience the negative image about Japanese and Yasukuni shine, Li never gave an argument directly. In terms of fairness, I think the film was sucessful, and therefore, it makes the film interesting.