Synopsis

Bombs exploded at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Corporate Building in Tokyo on August 30, 1974. This explosion resulted in hundreds of casualties including eight deaths. A month later, a statement entitled 'WOLF LETTER #1' by the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF). The WOLF LETTER demanded that Mitsubishi Heavy industries immediately stop its economic invasion. With ‘Wolf’ in the lead, armed units titled ‘Fangs of the Earth’ and ‘Scorpion’ started to support the EAAJAF.

Director

• 

  Kim Mi-re
  

  SANDA: Surviving (2013)
  Wea Bak: Stayed Out Over Night? (2009)
  NoGaDa (2005)
  We Are Workers or Not? (2003)

  과거 36년간 일제의 식민지배를 받았던 한국인인 나는 ‘반일’정서 속에서 성장했다. 나에게 ‘반일’투쟁과 저항은 옳고 영웅적인 행위였지만, 일본인에 의한 ‘반일’투쟁은 반역의 행위인 것이었다. 일본제국주의 타도를 위해서 일제침략기업을 폭파시키고, 천황을 암살하려고 했던 일본인들. 일본사회에서 그들은 언급조차 하기 어려운 혐오의 대상이었다. 이 영화를 만드는 내내, 주제의 엄중함이 나를 짓누르고, 도덕적인 질문들이 나를 멈추게 했다. 그럼에도 무언가에 끌려서 계속 그들을 만나러 갔다. 40여년 동안 사형수로, 무기징역수로 감옥에 있거나, 지명수배자로 살아가는 그들은, 일본사회로 부터 평생 용서받지 못하는 사람들이었다. 이 영화는 그들처럼 용서받지 못하는 영화가 될지도 모른다. 선과 악 사이에서 고통스럽게 살아 가고 있는 그들의 뒤를 나는 바라본다.

Review

The camera portrays the head office of Tokyo, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The film revives the roar of 40 years ago to this cold-blooded space of indifference. This was a place where wolves of anti-Japanese armed forces threw a bomb, demanding the introspection of war criminal in corporations. The director tracks down the trails of the scattered wolves who now became death-row convicts, all-lifers in prison, and wanted criminals. It is hard to imagine the violent struggles from the now old and sick members, just like the space which erased its past. Space and the concealed inner minds of people may be the themes penetrating this film. In her film <NoGaDa> (2005), the director recalled the death and pain of day laborers whenever she looked at the numerous apartments in South Korea, by filming her father, a day laborer. This somewhat disparate scene is amplified by the doctrine of the wolf troop. The wolves declared that the day laborers are the only ones actually fighting back in their homeland. Though the film does not highlight this aspect, intersections about the state of Korea and Japan like these provide the motivation to connect individual struggles and situations. When a wolf troop member saids they are leading an anti-nuclear movement which is not much different from the anti-Japanese movement, we realize that struggles are never perfectly removed like the sleek exterior of a building, but engraved like wrinkles in a human body. That is why this film seems to be a retrospective documentary without any retrospection. [Kim So-hee]

Credits

• Director, Producer  Kim Mi-re
• Cinematographer  Park Hong-yeol
• Editor  Lee Eun-soo, Kim Mi-re
• Music, Sound  Kim Byong-o

Contribution & World Sale

• Contribution & World Sale  Kim Mi-re
• E-mail  miraedoc@naver.com