Japan's First Public Showing of "Japanese Devils" Receives Threats

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Japan's First Public Showing of "Japanese Devils" Receives Threats

Elderly veterans and curious youngsters were among the crowd Tuesday at Japan's first public showing of "Japanese Devils", a three-hour mea culpa in which 14 former imperial army soldiers recall their brutal role in their country's war against China between 1931 and 1945.

"Once you've killed your second or third, you stop thinking about it," Yasuji Kaneko, a former army corporal, tells the camera, describing how he grew numb to slaughter after bayonet drills using live Chinese prisoners tied to stakes. "It was ultimately about competition," another veteran says, reeling off a litany of horrors that included burning Chinese babies just for fun. "So how many you killed becomes a standard of achievement."

The documentary has been shown at film festivals around the world, notching up prizes for director Minoru Matsui in Germany and Portugal. But its screening on home soil threatens to hit a raw nerve in a country where frank discussion about wartime atrocities remains largely taboo, and a backlash from right-wing activists is a real possibility. The arts cinema in Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district that is showing the film said it received phone threats prior to the opening.

The theatre braced for trouble from members of right-wing "uyoku" groups, who typically cruise the streets in black vans blaring militarist music or stage noisy kerbside demonstrations from atop flag-draped trucks. "So far there's been no problem, but who knows what will happen?" Katsue Tomiyama, the cinema's president, said.

The 14 former soldiers interviewed in the film recount in harrowing detail personal experiences of killing, burning, rape, torture and live vivisection, mostly after Japan plunged into full-scale war against China in 1937.

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