I met with Kazuo Kuroki following the premiere of "Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima (Kirishima 1945)" at the Fukuoka International Film Festival in 2002. A native of Ebino, Miyazaki Prefecture, where the film was shot, Kuroki looked content with the warm response he had received from the Kyushu audience. Smartly dressed in a black suit and his trademark black-knit cap, he was cautious yet sincere with his words.
The story is set in your hometown. How much of the story is fictional?
I was actually 15 years old in the summer of 1945, like the boy in the film. Since I was suffering from lung disease and my parents were in Manchuria, I was staying with my grandfather, a former soldier who had fought in Siberia. But my grandfather wasn't really as strict as the one in the film.