YASUKUNI  (Japan/China, 2008)
Directed by: Li Ying
Featuring: Kariya Naoji, Sugawara Ryuken, Gaojin Sumei (Chiwas Ari)
“Camerawork is stunning, never flinching, putting the viewer in what seems like harm's way. Visuals are breathtaking, but so is the loss of emotional control on display, by what are otherwise, probably, very rational people.”
- Variety

This is the first time we’ve screened a documentary in the New York Asian Film Festival and, of course, it’s only because YASUKUNI is the most controversial and one of the most eye-opening movies of 2007. Directed by Chinese-born Li Ying, it’s a sprawling portrait of Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead. The controversy arises because Yasukuni also holds the remains of 1,068 convicted war criminals, and because many of the war dead enshrined there were soldiers and officers who fought in World War II, some of whom participated in the procurement of comfort women and some of whom participated in incidents like the infamous Nanjing Massacre. The Yasukuni documentary takes a look at what the shrine means, but also follows the sometimes bloody clashes between nationalists and protestors, including a hapless American, that take place at the shrine. When the film was announced for release, right wing nationalists claimed they would disrupt the screenings leading four cinemas to drop the film out of fears over public safety, and some elected officials questioned public money being given to the film and called for it to be boycotted. This has resulted in YASUKUNI becoming a rallying point for freedom of speech in Japan, and while it has unleashed a firestorm of controversy it has also reignited some intense historical debates.

Shot in a rambling, sprawling style by Li Ying, YASUKUNI is a portrait of every facet of the stark and beautiful wooden shrine constructed in 1869. A clash between two versions of history, it will shock overseas audiences with the violence and the anger displayed by people for whom a visit to Yasukuni shrine is akin to flying the confederate flag. The symbol of Yasukuni has become a cultural mushroom cloud where even a statement like “Know the truth” suddenly takes on hidden and possibly toxic meanings. The battles over Yasukuni shrine are a clash between those who fear that Japan will slip out of its place at the front of the pack and become a second rate world power and those who say Never Again to all vestiges of war and militarism. And, most disturbingly, when it charts one of the last remaining sword makers of Yasukuni shrine it asks what is the difference between the tool, its use and its maker? Can you make a gun that’s used in a murder and not have blood on your hands? And can you make a sword, as beautiful as it is as an object, that’s used to commit war crimes and not be stained by the sin? Offering no easy answers, YASUKUNI is committed to asking uncomfortable questions.