Li Ying, 44, who moved to Japan 18 years ago, received
international acclaim for his documentary movie Yasukuni
that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Launch openings in
Japan on this year’s April 12 are planned.
Yasukuni Shrine is never a
target of criticism in Japan. Lambasting it is taboo. No
documentary about the shrine has been made by the Japanese to date;
hence, it’s far more difficult for a Chinese to shoot such a
film.
At the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, viewers spoke
highly of the documentary, saying that it did a good job striking
middle ground between different points of view by simply telling
the facts.
But regarding this controversial topic, the movie version is
viewed as a bombshell in Japan even before its début. The film has
stirred stark repercussions in Japan, along with a spate of
criticism. The Japanese right-wingers consider it anti-Japan while
the majority feels that the film would allow a better perspective
toward rethinking about the shrine.
“The documentary is anti-war not anti-Japanese,” Li Ying said
bluntly.
Despite difficulties that keep cropping up, the movie will hit
Japanese cinemas on April 12. It will lift the shroud of secrecy
over the Yasukuni Shrine: it is not tombstones or plaques that are
worshipped at Yasukuni, but a sword enshrined within the inner
sanctum.
Li Ying, who moved to Japan
18 years ago, has won wide acclaim in the US for his painstaking
documentary.
The documentary homes in on the sword and begins with
90-year-old Naoji Kariya, the only surviving bladesmith who helped
forge 8,100 yasukunitou wrought within the shrine's premises. The
film presents several revealing interviews with the old
artisan.
Chrysanthemum and sword, the embodiment of beauty and death, are
Japanese national symbols. Do the Japanese love the chrysanthemum
more than the sword? The two-hour documentary doesn’t answer the
question directly but rather allows room for personal judgment.
"I was watching a film about Nanjing at a seminar in Japan and
when it came to the scene where soldiers raised the Japanese flag
over the city, the Japanese audience applauded. I was immediately
shocked and puzzled," recalled Li.
a still in
Yasukuni
The incident drove him to produce a documentary about the
Yasukuni Shrine, but he never expected it would take him 10 years
to complete.
During shooting, the crew encountered a raft of unexpected
difficulties. “Even some left-wingers were not willing to give
interviews for inexplicable reasons. Our documentary was made a
target of attack during shooting as right-wingers abused us and
grabbed our camera,” Li said, looking nostalgic.
"Our team was not able to find a patron initially. But some two
years ago, the Beijing Zhongkun Group decided to invest 3 million
yuan after they realized that we were in dire financial straits,”
said Li. During his worst financial period Li was even unable to
pay his apartment rent. When the film was almost completed, Li
applied for a Japanese cultural fund feeling it was hopeless but
serendipitously he received a grant from them. Li was quite moved
when the fund reassured him that it would not withdraw its
sponsorship during the period of controversy.
Poster of the documentary
Yasukuni
(China.org.cn by He Shan, January 30, 2008)
