I saw this movie in 2003 when I was working in Japan. At the time there was rarely anything in English on TV, but occasionally I'd watch to get a feel for the country. So one weekend this started playing. It wasn't in English but the plot is very easy to follow, particularly if you know the history of WW2 and the fact that the Olinawans, though they look Japanese, are really a separate ethnic group from Japan, who were conquered by Japan in the distant past. I thought it was a movie at first but it kept going in and on! So I ended up staying home and just watching the whole thing. And WOW! It was the best TV movie I've ever seen, except for Lonesome Dove. It follows the cruel destruction on a lovely Okinawan family during the war. In Japan, WW2 is rarely taught in schools and Japanese atrocities are almost never acknowledged, but this movie is surprisingly different! It portrays the Okinawan family as largely peace loving but forced into the conflict. Each family member meets a different horrible fate at the hands of the radical Empirialists who ran Japan at the time, all inspired by true stories from history. I remember the 'Sugar Cane Song' from this movie still.... Zawawa, zawawa, zawawa... the sound that sugarcane makes as it blows in the wind. Haunting! My favorite detail is that the story is told in modern day by the one surviving member of the family to her bratty teen granddaughter, who gains a new respect for her family by the end. She recieves a family heirloom that survived the war and honors it by attaching it to dangle from her cellphone with her other little collectibles. This was perfect because at the time (and possibly still) hanging stuff from your cellphone is something that kids do in Japan to an obsessive extent. I saw entire stores selling doo dads to hang from your phone. Anyway, the greatest testament to how awesome this movie is that I only saw it once, 20 years ago, in a language I don't understand, yet I can still see many of the heartbreaking scenes in my head, and hear that haunting song... zawawa zawawa... zawawa...
