is a

Japanese television drama , also called or J-drama, are television programs that are a staple of Television in Japan, Japanese television and are broadcast daily. Format All major Television networks, TV networks in Japan produce a variety of Drama (genre), drama serie ...

which originally aired on

Nippon Television JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as (NTV) or Nippon TV, is a Japanese television station serving the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned and operated by the , a sub ...

(NTV) on August 25, 2008. Directed by Nozomu Amamiya and with a screenplay by Yō Takeyama, it starred

Etsuko Ichihara was a Japanese actress. She appeared in over 100 films. Biography Ichihara was a member of the Haiyuza theater troupe from 1957 to 1971. She won an award at the Geijutsusai in 1959 and became the star of Haiyuza. She narrated the long-running ...

and

Karina Nose (born February 21, 1984) is a Japanese model and actress. Her birth name is . She was born in Shōwa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture ha ...

. The production won a TV Drama Award at the 2008 Festival of the Arts of the Japanese

Agency for Cultural Affairs The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture. The agency's budget for FY 2018 rose to ¥107.7 billion. Overview The age ...

().

Plot

The story takes place in Maoka City,

Karafuto , was established by the Empire of Japan in 1907 to govern the southern part of Sakhalin. This territory became part of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded by the R ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

(Currently

Kholmsk Kholmsk (), known until 1946 as Maoka (), is a port town and the administrative center of Kholmsky District of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia. It is located on the southwest coast of the Sakhalin Island, on coast of the gulf of Nevelsky in the Strait o ...

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

) during the final year of the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...

. Nine telephone operators in Maoka took their own lives by taking

potassium cyanide Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula KCN. It is a colorless salt, similar in appearance to sugar, that is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include ...

when the Soviet Union invaded the city on August 20, 1945. The TV drama is based on this incident and is partially fictional (names of the characters, etc.).

Cast

as Nakamura Mizue (age 82) **

Mayuko Fukuda is a Japanese actress who made her debut in 1998. She was managed by the talent agency FLaMme. Her father, Kenji Fukuda, is a drummer in the band Kasutera when Fukuda's father attended Waseda University in Tokyo after he moved from Shūnan, Yam ...

as Mizue (age 15-19) *

as Inoue Aiko *

Miho Shiraishi is a Japanese actress from Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Filmography Film *''Shiroi Fune'' (2002) *'' Swing Girls'' (2004) ''as Yayoi Itami'' *''Densha Otoko'' (2005) ''cameo'' *'' The Harimaya Bridge'' (2009) ''as Kayo Takeuchi'' *''Halfway'' (20 ...

as Misa Yamazaki *

Yui Ichikawa is an actress and model from Tokyo, Japan. She is also known by her nickname, ''Yui-nyan''. As an actress she has appeared in several dramas (''doramas''), and in recent years she has concentrated more on her film career. She played a minor ...

as Nakajima Sakura * Risa Kudō as Yoshiko Inoue *

Osamu Mukai is a Japanese actor. He was born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from Meiji University. Early life He was born in Isogo-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture and went to Hama Junior high school (浜中学校) and Hitorizawa High school ...

Nakamura Shidō Nakamura may refer to: *Nakamura (surname), a list of people with the surname *Nakamura, Kōchi, a former city in Kōchi Prefecture, Japan *Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, a ward in Nagoya city in Aichi Prefecture, Japan * Nakamura stable, a stable of sumo wr ...

* Hitomi Satō * Tkachov Sava as Andrei. * Ayaka Ikezawa as Akane Kawashima * Asuka Shibuya * Natsuko as Tiyo Sato *

Yūko Natori or Yuuko is a common feminine Japanese given name. Written forms Yūko can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *優子, "gentle, child" *裕子, "abundance, child" *祐子, "providential help, blessing, child" *夕子, "e ...

* Ayumi Sakamoto

Background

The

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

's occupation of

is a very sensitive topic and controversial in both

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and

due to the previous border dispute between the two countries. A 1974 movie titled ''

Karafuto 1945 Summer Hyosetsu no Mon , was established by the Empire of Japan in 1907 to govern the southern part of Sakhalin. This territory became part of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50th parallel north, 50°N ...

'' (樺太1945年夏氷雪の門) portrayed the event as an invasion by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

that claimed the lives of thousands. However, due to political pressure from the Soviet Union, the Japanese government intervened and banned the movie from being aired and sold. ''Kiri no Hi'' caused less political uproar from Russia due to the movie's insistence as "fiction" and it did not focus on the Red Army's brutal actions but instead talked about

world peace World peace is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would come about. Various relig ...

. At the end, the granddaughter of the survivor of the Soviet offensive pointed at

and said, "Grandma, look, it's Sakhalin", with a big smile, instead of calling the island by its Japanese name of Karafuto, which hinted that the Japanese people were to move on from the past and go forward despite their conflict with the Russians.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 1303752
Official Site
2008 television films 2008 films Japanese drama television series World War II television drama series Films set in Sakhalin