The Eternal Zero
| The Eternal Zero | |
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Film poster advertising The Eternal Zero in Japan
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| Directed by | Takashi Yamazaki |
| Written by | Takashi Yamazaki Tamio Hayashi |
| Based on |
Eien no Zero by Naoki Hyakuta |
| Starring |
Junichi Okada Haruma Miura Mao Inoue |
| Music by | Naoki Satō |
| Cinematography | Kozo Shibasaki |
| Edited by | Ryuji Miyajima |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Toho |
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Release date
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Running time
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144 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Box office |
¥8.76 billion $84.5 million |
The Eternal Zero (永遠の0 Eien no Zero?) is a 2013 Japanese war drama film directed by Takashi Yamazaki and based on a novel by Naoki Hyakuta, published in English by Vertical Inc..
In 2004, twenty-six-year-old Kentaro Saeki is repeatedly failing the national bar examination and is uncertain about his future. One day, after the funeral of his grandmother, Matsuno, he is startled to learn from his mother and older sister Keiko that his maternal grandfather Kenichiro was not his blood-relation. Keiko and Kentaro start hearing stories about their real grandfather, Kyuzo Miyabe and visit many of his former comrades all of whom begin by criticize his "timidity" in battle. Kentaro finally learns the reason why Miyabe became a Kamikaze pilot during the conversation with an old comrade of his grandfather called Izaki, who is in hospital dying of cancer. Izaki talks about his relationship with their grandfather to Keiko and Kentaro, claiming that only the "timid" Miyabe gave him the hope to save his own life after he was shot down over the ocean.
The film begins with an unspecified attack near the end of the Pacific War, a Zero fighter plane threatens the United States Pacific Fleet by cutting through its defensive anti-aircraft fire. Kyuzo Miyabe, the pilot of the Zero fighter is regarded by his comrades as a coward, though an exceptionally skilled fighter pilot, for consistently returning alive from missions, openly explaining "I don't want to die," the result of a promise made to his wife Matsuno and daughter Kiyoko: to return from the war alive.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy advances steadily, only to be steadily beaten hollow in the battles from Battle of Midway and Bombing on Rabaul onwards. Despite the rising desperation and hopelessness of their situation, all of Miyabe's men say they wish to die gloriously in battle. However, he persuades them, by his simple and honest example (Miyabe accepts severe beatings by outraged senior officers several times for speaking these opinions, and refuses to retract them), that to survive is worthwhile.
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Wikipedia