‘Oppenheimer’ finally premieres in Japan to mixed reactions and high emotions

6 comments

1. Finally I can see it!

2. It’s a very talky movie. Someone is always talking. Difficult to follow with subtitles (let alone make subtitles for). For perspective The Dark Knight was not at all popular here

3. > “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.

   This sums up a big part of the kerfuffle over this film in Japan. An atomic bomb movie without the Japanese victimization angle is insanely difficult for them to wrap their mind around. The (somewhat tired by now) “never again” depiction of suffering at Hiroshima ad nauseam is all they know, as if the torture and guilt of Oppenheimer and the more inward-looking Americans involved in the project were rendered moot once the bomb exploded and Japan earned its red badge of horror, igniting a Japanese feeling of “only WE can tell the story of atomic weapons.”

   Ultimately, it’s an anti-bomb film, and the terror over showing it here was blown out of proportion. It should have been embraced as a sympathetic reflection of Japan’s own hatred of the bomb, and a piece of quasi-apology art from the west.

   Or something, I dunno. It’s a complicated subject, this is just my opinion.

4. Can’t wait!
   A lot of older media literate Japanese people who I really respect really hated it. I’m so curious.

5. I want to see it, but my city has basically stopped showing foreign films since 2020…

6. It’s a really good film