Reviewing Japanese films about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki often feels like critiquing a memorial service. Their makers’ heartfelt pleas for peace are hard to fault, so how can I say the acting is wooden and the dialogue resembles an English conversation textbook? Isn’t it like assigning star ratings to a eulogy?
Perhaps, but while being somewhat guilty of the above-mentioned sins, Jumpei Matsumoto’s “Nagasaki: In the Shadow of the Flash” sheds a revealing light on the aftermath of the Nagasaki bombing.
Based on memoirs of Red Cross nurses who cared for Nagasaki bombing victims, which were compiled into a book in 1980, the film focuses on three teenage student nurses. One frames the story with her present-day reminiscences and reflections as an elderly woman, played by the last surviving book contributor herself in an affecting cameo.
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