[REL] Kodomo no koro senso ga atta (1981)

[Sully23]

Since it takes place in Japan at the end of WWII, I am sure that it is not ALL fun and games. Longer synopsis:

Spoiler: Synopsis by Eleanor Mannikka Taro (Yuichi Saito) and his mother Kazue (Fumie Kashiyama) are afraid of remaining in the city of Tokyo at the end of World War II, and so the mother decides that they should go to stay with grandmother Masae (Hiromi Nakahara) until things settle down. Two of her sisters, Miyo (Aiko Mimasu) and Futae (Meiko Kaji) decide on the same option. When Taro arrives at the grandmother's house, she forbids him to go near a particular barn because it is haunted, she says. In fact, the barn is the hideaway for little Emi (Kyasarin/ Catherine), the racially mixed daughter of Aunt Fusae and an American. Emi's existence is suspected by the locals and the police, but they cannot get past the militant grandmother to investigate any further. Then one day Taro comes upon his aunt and Emi bathing, and is taken aback at first, though he cannot help but make friends with his newfound cousin. He is her only chance to get out of the barn and play for awhile, but that innocent activity is certainly dangerous as the war -- and the villagers -- are never far away. https://www.allmovie.com/movie/kodomo-n ... ta-v157364

In fact, something similar happened in the USA with the Japanese living in that country, the interesting thing is the American girl is the main focus, a story never told before.

[kmc714]

I was online looking for this film and found this discussion, I hope you all don't mind me jumping in!

I saw it in England in '81 or '82, on TV. Likely on the BBC, as they did show foreign-language films quite often. I recorded it on VHS and watched it a few times in the next couple of years. I thought it was a very good film, funny and sad. When the little boy is told by his grandma that he may not play in the particular granary because there are demons in it, he becomes determined to do just that! His surprise that the "demon" is a girl is quite comical. He goes there to visit her several times to play before he's caught, but convinces his grandma and aunts that she's lonely and they shouldn't forbid his visits. The only other part I recall very clearly is the family - including the girl - playing at the beach when it's attacked by fighter planes...I don't remember whether any of them were hurt or killed though.

I'm actually surprised that it was not released to a wide audience. I owned a video store for 20+ years and looked high and low for it (mostly during the pre-internet era) to add to my inventory, as I told several customers about it and promised to notify them if I ever got one.

When I was in England I was in the military and had access to some pretty good home entertainment equipment, through our base exchange store. I had a VHS that recorded and played all formats (NTSB, SECAM, PAL) and a television that could be used worldwide. Sadly, when I got back home in the States my stuff was stored in a leaky barn while I was trying to get a place set up to use it, my TV and VCR got ruined! So I had loads of tapes recorded in PAL I could not watch. I still have many of the tapes packed in boxes, and hope to go through them later this summer when I get some down time. It would be amazing if I still had this movie, then it would be a matter of figuring out a way to play it to see if it still was in working order. Does anyone out there have multi-regional VHS players anymore?

[Night457]

More discussion is always appreciated, as are new members. Welcome to FLM!

Multi-region VHS players are on eBay, but expensive from any seller outside of a war zone. I see $300+, +shipping for a working model!

[xx_neo_xx]

I found this and thought it might interest you: https://archive.org/details/there-was-a ... as-a-child

[ghost]

I found this and thought it might interest you: https://archive.org/details/there-was-a ... as-a-child

The title is different, but it seems to be Kodomo no koro senso ga atta. Thanks a lot for finding.

It's VHS quality.

[Night457]

Yay!! That is the English title at IMDB, and what looks like an alternate spelling of the director's name. Thank you xx_neo_xx!!!

[kev]

O

M

G

!!!



Thank you, xx_neo_xx!

A.) I can't believe I've never posted to this thread in all these years. This movie though has been on my radar and as Night has mentioned, I too was beginning to feel that it would NEVER show up.. THAT fear pretty much ended today!

B.) Using the 'Archive' link that xx_neo_xx provided, I clicked on the 'Torrent' link in the 'Download Options' and to my it actually produced a valid torrent link! Better yet; when I popped it into my Bittorrent machine, it immediately started loading!! A 1.41GB file!

Granted; it's loading VERY slowly, but it's more movement than we've had on this film in years! (Since we posted the clip, at least.)

Thank you so much, again, xx_neo_xx! I don't want to rush and count my chicks, but I think we're finally inching towards a [REL] on this film..

kev.

[Sully23]

I had been testing translations in English into Russian Polish for many years in case it appeared somewhere.

[ghost]

Don't get too exited, kev. It's poor VHS quality.

You can buy the VHS on Amazon Japan:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%AD%90%E3%8 ... B00005ILTH

[Image]

[Night457]

Notes: Archive.org typically has .torrent files and my experience has been they are always Seeded.
The poor VHS quality most noticeably has hissy audio. I did not watch it but I did not see tracking issues, just a soft picture.
There are no copies available at Amazon.jp so that is just an old dead listing -- unless you just bought it.

I am delighted to have just this copy, although perhaps not as explosively so as kev.