The Face of Jizo

Chichi to Kuraseba（父と暮せば）

Color / 1.85 : 1 / 2004 / 99 min / Eisei Gekijo, BANDAI VISUAL, NIHON SKY WAY, TV TOKYO MEDIANET, Aoi Advertising Promotion, PAL Entertainments Production

Director: KUROKI Kazuo

Cinematography: SUZUKI Tatsuo

Music: MATSUMURA Teizo

Producer: FUKADA Seigou

Cast:

Fukuyoshi Mitsue: MIYAZAWA Rie

Fukuyoshi Takezou: HARADA Yoshio

Mr. Kinoshita: ASANO Tadanobu

Story:

In Hiroshima in 1948, memories of the atomic bombing three years earlier are still fresh in the minds of the people. Mitsue (Miyazawa Rie) works at a library where she meets Mr. Kinoshita (Asano Tadanobu), a shy, young man researching the disaster. They grow close, and Mr. Kinoshita eventually asks for her hand in marriage. However, Mitsue is troubled by her memories of the bombing when she was unable to save her father, Takezo (Harada Yoshio), and her closest friends as well as the many others who lost their lives. She doubts whether she deserves to have survived. Then the spirit of her father appears before her, and asserts that she should be happy. Watching over her budding romance with Mr. Kinoshita, Takezo cajoles and encourages Mitsue into opening her heart again.

The third in veteran director Kuroki Kazuo’s (Tomorrow, Kirishima 1945) trilogy of films set in wartime Japan.