Tonight (9/17) on TBS: “Bokutachi no Sensou”

Be sure to tune into TBS (Channel 6) tonight at 9pm for “Bokutachi no Sensou” (“Our War”), a made-for-tv movie about a furita who timeslips back to 1944 and finds himself in the middle of a war:

TBS’ Boku Tachi no Senso (Sept. 17, 9 p.m.) features a fictional young man, Kenta (Mirai Moriyama), who accidentally slips back in time from 2006 to 1944 shortly after seeing a sudden lightning flash while surfing. Soon he finds he has mysteriously traded places with a young soldier, Goichi (also Moriyama), who was doing flight training over the same area of the sea where Kenta was surfing.

Kenta, as a soldier, is then sent to an Imperial Japanese Navy base, where he is assigned to be a pilot for one of the manned torpedoes called Kaiten.

Commenting on his role, the actor says: “In our contemporary world of material abundance, it’s difficult to know what’s most important in our lives. In Kenta’s case, he finally realizes how much he loves his girlfriend through his experiences in the war days. I wanted to show his mental changes.”

Handing down the memories of the war to the next generation is a duty for broadcasters, says Yasuo Yagi, producer of the drama. “Through this drama, I wanted to show people the miseries of the war from the standpoint of powerless common people.”

Sounds quite interesting. There is some photos and information about it on the Official Site: http://www.tbs.co.jp/boku-sensou/

Update: My Impressions of the Film

It was pretty good, as Japanese made-for-TV movies go. The fact that Kenta (The guy from 2005) is swapped with Goichi (The guy from 1944), makes the movie significantly different from the time travel play/film “Winds of God: Kamikaze”, in which two guys from modern Japan are transported back to late 1945. We are able to see how a Japanese imperial navy pilot reacts to modern Japan, while at the same time we see how a furita from 2005 reacts to being placed into the Imperial Japanese Navy of 1944. Kenta and Goichi quickly realize that nobody will believe that they are from a different time and keep their mouths shut about the truth, making it significantly different from “Winds of God”, in which the main characters spent most of their time trying to convince others of the fact that they had come from the future and that everyone should stop fighting a lost war. Here are a few interesting points in the film:

-After Kenta finds himself washed ashore in 1944 Japan, an elderly woman helps him and provides him with food. Japanese military police discover that a “deserter” is at her house, and when they barge into the home they are far from friendly. The old lady insists that Kenta isn’t a soldier, and gets shoved into a wall. Kenta is taken away and beaten severely. Scenes of soldiers getting the shit beaten out of them for disobeying orders are ever present.

-Goichi, who crashed his plane during a training mission in 1944, wakes up in a modern Japanese hospital bed. Apparently he has never seen an IV before, and he imagines it to be a frightening jelly fish. When he looks out the window, he notices Family Mart and KFC signs and concludes that he is a prisoner in America. He punches his doctor in the face and runs out of the hospital. The streets outside, which are cluttered with automobiles, strange flashing lights, and gyaru, scare the crap out of him: he thinks he has died and gone to hell.

-In one scene, the men in the Imperial Navy unit listen to a speech by an officer telling them that they should become members of the special attack forces (kamikaze/suicide attack forces, that is). They are given slips of paper and told to vote by writing an “O” if they agree or an “X” if they disagree. Kenta watches as most of the men around him proudly write circles on their paper, thinking to himself that they must be lunatics. He writes an “X” on his paper. Their commander collects the papers and declares that 100% of the unit has agreed to join the special attack forces! Afterwards, Kenta and the one other man who wrote an “X” are punished.

-While Goichi loves the amazing food in the 21st century (especially KFC), he is absolutely shocked when he sees some young men running down a street and knocking over an old woman and ignoring what they have done. After helping the old woman to stand up, Goichi becomes enraged at what Japan has become. What happened to Japan’s old traditions of respect for the elderly?!! However, he eventually starts to adapt to his situation (getting to bang Kenta’s girlfriend probably helps out with this).

-Kenta survives until the end of the war. He is on the deck of a submarine when the Emperor announces Japan’s surrender. Many of the crew members seem relieved that they have survived and are talking about returning to Japan to see their families and rebuild. But the captain of the submarine tells them to shut up and decides that instead of shamefully surrendering, their sub will make a final suicide attack on the Americans! Sorry, Kenta!

-The ending of movie was unclear. Who dies? Who lives? Does anybody time slip? It was extremely unsatisfying.