Eien no zero (2013)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: history, drama,
Cast: Miura Haruma, Okada Junichi, Inoue Mao, Hamada Gaku, Arai Hirofumi, Sometani Shota, Ueda Tatsuya, Miura Takahiro, Tanaka Min, Yamamoto Gaku, Hira Mikijiro, Hashizume Isao, Fukiishi Kazue, Funuki Jun, Natsuyagi Isao, Aoki Ken, Enda Yuya, Furukawa Yuki, Nakanishi Tetsuya,
Synopsis: After grandmother's death, .. learns that his grandfather is not his biological grandfather, but grandmother's second husband. The first husband lost his life as an kamikaze pilot in the Second World War. As nobody from the family has any information about him.. with his sister start to investigate their real grandfather's mysterious life.
 Rating: 5/5
It is a World War II movie, so you can be sure that it will hit you in the heart and leave you cry. The ones who have been following my blog before know that I have seen more war movies and actually tend to like them as they are very educational and mostly filmed with care.

After continuously failing to pass the law-school exams Kentaro is rethinking his life. While at first he is doubting in finding anything out about his real grandfather, he soon discovers that grandfather was a much bigger person than he seemed to be. Just as most of the youth today, he does not know much what happened during the war or how the life actually was then. By hearing all the different stories he starts to understand the tragedy of the past. It is very interesting to see him deal with all his emotions and too see how "earning few bucks" turns into "finding his roots". Muira Haruma's acting is on spot, but for sure Okada Junichi was the one in the spotlight.

For some people Miyabe-san was the biggest coward, while for others he was the biggest man in the air force. Due to the story being told by other people by their memories, Miyabe-san stays mysterious through out everything and there is just a little that you can see what is going on in his head. War leaves its mark on him and I like how they brought out the difference how he changed with the time.
Okada Junichi was the first choice for the cast as his appearance was the most similar to what the production team had in mind of Miyabe. In addition, in order to portray Miyabe the best way, Okada learned martial arts to the level when he became the qualified teacher. What else can I say that Johnny's are known for their unlimited power to master all kind of stuff very fast.

There is not much to talk about the sister and Kiyoko. Though both of them are eager to know the truth, it seems that they more want to know love story between Matsuno and Miyabe. Maybe it has something to do with the "being a man" as it is normal that grandfather and grandson get along better and grandmother and granddaughter.

In a way I felt a bit that their other grandfather was left beside a little bit, even though I like the fact that they asked his permission to make the research. You can see that he was a man who really loved Matsuno and Kiyoko, even though Kiyoko was not his child. It made me wonder how did he meet with Matsuno, but I can say that this movie has an answer to every question.. okey, to almost every question.  This was Natsuyagi Isao's last movie that was released after he died in May 2013 (the movie was released in December). In fact Natsuyagi Isao had 5 movies that were released after his death.

The movie has had a lot of controversy in audience as some are seeing it as "glorification" to war; "missing facts" and "misinterpretation of kamikaze pilots". As the Hyakuta Naoki, author of the novel, said: "People are seeing just what they want to see". I agree with the writer that this story really is about the tragedy of war and reminding people that we should never forget the things that happened in wars. The movie gives a good overview of the war timeline and also portrays different personalities of the soldiers as everyone have different motives and reaction to the things happening. In many countries in history classes kamikaze-pilots are portrayed as "brainwashed pilot who willingly went to kill themselves". Though it might have been the case for many, I appreciate that the movie is bringing in the different point of view where a lot of pilots simply did not have any rights in making the decision.  

In 2015, the movie got a new remake as a mini-drama in 3 episodes starring Mukai Osamu, Kiritani Kenta and Tabe Mikako. The reasons why to make a drama was to be able to show also more things that are in the novel, but did not appear in movie as for movie they had to leave out many things.
Movie itself won many international awards and is the second highest-grossing Japanese movie of year 2013.

SPOILER-review:
I guess grandfather had two reasons why he did not tell the truth about Miyabe-san to the kids when they were asking the first time. Firstly, he did had an agreement with Matsuno that they are not talking about it (especially given the fact that they did not talk about him even between themselves). Secondly, with a high chance the kids would not have understood what kind of person Miyabe really was and what were his reasons that made him make those decisions.