A Korean orphan who does not remember his origins is treated well by Japanese people. He decides to become a kamikazi pilot to repay his adopted homeland.
It's an odd film, directed by In-kyu Choi and Tadashi Imai by Toho in Korea, under the supervision of the Japanese Navy. Korean Choi directed five films and then disappeared to the North, never to be heard from again. Imai directed more than forty films from 1950 until his death in 1991, many of them social realist films that bear a striking resembling to Italian Neo-Realism. He denied making any films during the last few years of the War.
The reason for this denial, given his sensitive portrayal of poor people in films like Kome, is obvious: this is a propaganda piece, and clearly he felt guilty about it. Yet the portrayal of the orphan by Yu-ho Kim us heart rending in its simplicity and rootlessness, his need to belong and stubborn humility; when Shin-jae Kim speaks of her brother, he denies knowing anything about it; like her, he has a small bell, but it is a different size. With Takashi Shimura.
It's an odd film, directed by In-kyu Choi and Tadashi Imai by Toho in Korea, under the supervision of the Japanese Navy. Korean Choi directed five films and then disappeared to the North, never to be heard from again. Imai directed more than forty films from 1950 until his death in 1991, many of them social realist films that bear a striking resembling to Italian Neo-Realism. He denied making any films during the last few years of the War.
The reason for this denial, given his sensitive portrayal of poor people in films like Kome, is obvious: this is a propaganda piece, and clearly he felt guilty about it. Yet the portrayal of the orphan by Yu-ho Kim us heart rending in its simplicity and rootlessness, his need to belong and stubborn humility; when Shin-jae Kim speaks of her brother, he denies knowing anything about it; like her, he has a small bell, but it is a different size. With Takashi Shimura.