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Rating: ***
Genre: Anime Drama Dubbed Review #: 2 MPAA: YRV Cast (in credits order) complete, from the IMDb Tsutomu Tatsumi ....Seita Ayano Shiraishi .... Setsuko Yoshiko Shinohara.... Mother Akemi Yamaguchi....Aunt | |
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Review:
"September 14th, 1945. That was the night I died" The movie opens in a train station. There are starving children lying on the floor while passers-by casually toss pocket change in their direction. Later on, the janitor is cleaning up, and finds that another one of the children has died. His only possession is an old, rusted and dirty candy tin full of some sort of ash. The Janitor, not knowing what to do with it, tosses the tin away, and the ash spills out onto the ground. Out in the field, the fireflies come out, and the ghost of a small girl appears. Soon, her brother's ghost appears too, and they begin a journey. |
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The Movie continues in one long flashback, reminiscent of Act 3 of 'Our
Town'. It goes like this: Young Seita and his little sister Setsuko live
in a town with their mother, while their Father is off fighting in the
Imperial Navy. Seita is a remarkable young hero, who remains a constant
source of strength for his family during these tough times. When their
mother is killed in a firebomb attack, Seita sucks it up and tells Setsuko
that she's just in the hospital, and will be fine in a few days. Seita
and Setsuko go to live with their Aunt, who is an insufferable bitch. This
woman takes their rice and gives it to her family, while scolding Seita
on his laziness, and she eventually drives her niece and nephew into the
street. They are forced to live in an abandoned bomb shelter, and it goes
downhill from there.
Well, the plot is quite simplistic, and there are no surprises, but I think that's what the authors intended, because they show the hero's death in the first scene. The movie was quite good, but Setsuko's crying got very annoying very fast. |
| This movie is no 'Barefoot Gen', but it is a powerful W.W.II movie that I will recommend. | |
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