Kuroi ame (1989)

Director:

Shohei Imamura

Writers:

Masuji Ibuse (novel) and
Shohei Imamura (writer)

Release Date:

17 September 1989 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | War

Plot:

The story of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, based on Masuji Ibuse's novel.

Plot Keywords:

Aunt | Niece | Atomic Bomb | Uncle | Radiation Sickness

Awards:

26 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Yoshiko Tanaka	...	Yasuko
Kazuo Kitamura	...	Shigematsu Shizuma
Etsuko Ichihara	...	Shigeko Shizuma
Shoichi Ozawa	...	Shokichi
Norihei Miki	...	Kotaro
Keisuke Ishida	...	Yuichi
Hisako Hara	...	Kin
Masato Yamada	...	Tatsu
Tamaki Sawa	...	Woman in Ikemoto-ya
Akiji Kobayashi	...	Katayama
Kazuko Shirakawa	...	Old Woman with white flag
Kenjirô Ishimaru	...	Aono
Mayumi Tateichi	...	Fumiko of Ikemoto-ya
Taiji Tonoyama	...	The Old Priest
Fujio Tokita	...	40 Year Old Woman with burns

Also Known As:

Black Rain (UK) (USA) (literal English title)
Pluie noire (Canada: French title) (France) [fr]
Black Rain (Brazil) [pt]
Czarny deszcz (Poland) [pl]
Lluvia negra (Spain) [es]
Matomeni vrohi (Greece) [el]
Pioggia nera (Italy) [it]
Schwarzer Regen (West Germany) [de]
Svart regn (Sweden) [sv]

Runtime:

123 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

West Germany:12 | Spain:13 | USA:Not Rated | France:U | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Company:

Hayashibara Group

Movie Connections:

Featured in Music for the Movies: Tôru Takemitsu (1994)

Brilliant, frightening and sobering, all at once.

It infuriates me no end that, now and forever, I will have to identify this movie (which I consider a masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly) with the qualifier "Not the Michael Douglas movie!" Not only are the titles the same, but they refer to the same thing- the radioactive fallout that rained upon the survivors of the first nuclear bombings. In Imamura's film, this is no cheap metaphor; the whole movie is about the fallout, physical and emotional, from Hiroshima and the war itself. As the deterioration of a couple and their grown niece becomes more grimly clear, the ironic imagery becomes more potent, from the old clock that is reset each night to the stone gods that gradually pile up outside the heroine's door. (These, in turn, are carved by a shellshocked veteran who is compelled, in a series of tragicomic episodes, to attack anything with a motor that approaches the town.) The bombing day itself is shown in piecemeal flashbacks that are coolly horrifying. Yet "Black Rain" ("NtMDm!") can be watched, even repeatedly, because of Imamura's compassion for his characters. I repeat: a masterpiece.