Film confronts Japan on wartime past

On the 61st anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II, wider discussion of the conflict's meaning to the nation is still controversial – and avoided.

But in a handful of theaters in Japan, "The Ants," a recently released documentary about Japanese troops left in China after the war, is an attempt to remind Japanese of war memories many would rather not acknowledge.

The film, showing at theaters in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, has not gotten the national release and media blitz of war films that have taken a more nationalist tack. But it has played to packed theaters, prompting managers to add more showings.

From politicians to the major media, many here shrug off war memories, something that has cast a profound chill over Japan's relations with neighbors that it once occupied. In anticipation of today's anniversary, South Korea warned Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi not to visit Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni war shrine, where war criminals are memorialized. Protesters in Tokyo seconded that sentiment.

Some Japanese say their country has apologized for wartime atrocities and should not have to continue to do so. But amid rising nationalism and ongoing controversies over how Japan represents its history in textbooks, those apologies "lack substance," charges Yoshifumi Tawara, of Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21 in Tokyo. "They don't get the impression that Japan offered an apology."

For some, the movie is a welcome challenge to conventional thinking. Rieko Ishikawa says "The Ants" made her think "ignorance is a sin." She has formed a group with others to encourage more people to watch it. The film, she says, is "one of the most impressive works I have ever seen."

"The Ants" ("Ari no Heitai") tells the story of Waichi Okumura and other soldiers who were ordered to fight on in China, "for the resurgence of Japanese imperialism," after the war's end. Like a squadron of ants, Mr. Okumura and fellow soldiers did as they were told, he says.

"What mattered most then was whether you could dedicate your life to your superior officers," recalls the former soldier.

Of 59,000 soldiers who belonged to the first Imperial Army, 2,600 were forced to stay on in Shanxi Province. In the end, they joined China's Nationalist Army, fighting the Communist Army.

Okumura is among the few former soldiers willing to speak out about Japan's atrocities during World War II. Many are unwilling to do so, and some glorify the war. Okumura says that, plagued by guilt, he never told his wife about the war before he and the film crew traveled to China.

During China's civil war, 550 of the soldiers perished and 700, including Okumura, became prisoners of war. Okumura came under mortar attack in battle and suffered permanent injuries.

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