Happy 59th birthday, Malaysia!

View of Kedah Peak (AKA Gunung Jerai) from Penang Island

The Malaysian flag flying in the wind at Air Itam Dam

Happy 59th birthday, Malaysia!  Here's wishing that life in this multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural nation in the year ahead will be as peaceful and tranquil as the photos at the top of this blog post look.  

And yes, just because I've spent many years outside of your borders doesn't mean that I don't care for what goes on within it.  (After all, my parents have been living there all their lives, among other things.)

Also, as the proverbial "they" say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.  And it's true enough that I've thoroughly enjoyed my trips back in recent years; with lots of time spent catching up with family members and friends as well as just gorging myself silly on lots of delicious food, halal and otherwise! 

On a jokey -- but nonetheless true -- note: years ago when I lived in Philadelphia, an American friend and I were walking past a residence hall at the University of Pennsylvania when something hanging in a window caught his eye.  Pointing it out to me, he proceeded to tell me that "There's something wrong with that American flag"; whereby I had to tell him that "Actually, that's a Malaysian flag"! ;D

Overland to Sham Chung but out by boat (Photo-essay)

As regular visitors to this blog know, I get a big kick out of spotting interesting critters while out hiking in Hong Kong.  And over the years, I've come to know to look forward to re-visiting certain sections of the Big Lychee where I'm pretty much guaranteed to do such every so often, including up on Victoria Peak and a section of trail near the Sai Kung peninsula village of Pak Sha O which can seem like a veritable bug highway.  

Another part of Hong Kong where I've come across a number of cool-looking creatures (including the first lantern bug I ever came across) is the remote as well as scenic village of Sham Chung.  And while my first visit there came by way of one of the lengthiest hikes I had hitherto gone on, I've since been able to time my excursions there to make it so that I can catch a kaito out from there to Wong Shek Pier (where a couple of reliable bus options exist to take one back to Sai Kung town and further into urban Hong Kong).

Consequently, a visit to Sham Chung is something that I've come to look forward to doing in the summer: what with the very doable hike there promising plenty of critter spottings (even when one's got insect repellant on!) along with a picturesque destination, and a bonus kaito ride that's particularly pleasant when a nice breeze is whipped up during the boat trip which also yields plenty of grand views of parts of Hong Kong which few people see, never mind venture to...  

One of the more unusual caterpillars I spotted on the hike

-- and, actually, in Hong Kong thus far! ;) 

 

 What do you reckon: is it a caterpillar-like snail

or a snail-like caterpillar in the above picture? :O

After this point in the hike, it's all downhill -- literally 

but not as far as the enjoyment quotient is concerned ;b

Critters continue to abound along the way, including

delicate looking ones like this damselfly 

 

 Sham Chung is home to a rare Hong Kong building

which dates all the way back to 1936! 

 

Enjoying some quiet downtime on Sham Chung pier

while waiting for the kaito to arrive 

 

Being out in nature makes one realize how small 

a part of the world humanity actually is

 

While I plan to hike up Ma On Shan one of these days, I'm content 

to just view Sharp Peak from a boat or generally low ground... ;S

Drinking in the views when others focus on their mobile phone screens

On a ferry ride offering scenic sights like this, wouldn't you 

want to drink in the views rather than look at your phone's screen?

 

Maybe the people looking at their phone screens in the above photo

were checking out photos that had taken on their smartphones... ;S

 

Take time to stop and smell the roses.  This is a piece of advice that pretty much every one living in the "hurry, hurry, go, go" city that is Hong Kong would benefit from obeying every once in a while.  And now with the vast majority of the populace hooked to their smartphones, this territory with a mobile phone penetration rate of 227,8% as of May 2016, it seems that people would also benefit from the recommendation that they look up from their smartphone screens to check out and appreciate the surrounding scenery every once in a while too!

 

I'm sure this blog's readers have seen the famous photo of the fellow who missed catching sight of a giant humpback whale that swam so very close to his boat because he was focused on what was on view on his smartphone screen.  Maybe he's the kind of guy who doesn't much care if he makes a rare critter spotting or not.  On the other hand, I -- who was super thrilled to catch glimpses of whales swimming in the wild while cruising on the Hurtigruten's MS Richard With in Norway last summer -- am one of those people who would have majorly crushed if I have missed seeing a big and wonderful wild creature like that when it was just a few feet away from me!

 

But, then, I increasingly feel like a rare, and sometimes even downright weird, individual here in Hong Kong because I'm the kind of person who (still) enjoys looking out the window -- rather than down at the screen of my mobile phone -- when I riding a bus, minibus, ferry or whathaveyou over here.  After, this is a part of the world where smartphone zombies roamed the land (and sometimes surrounding waters too) even before the current Pokemon Go craze gave smartphone addicts one more reason to glue their eyes to the screens of their mobile phones!  

To be honest though, I don't care or worry all that much about other folks thinking I'm crazy for not doing what everyone else does.  For one thing, I'm frequently enjoying viewing the passing scenery or "just" people watching too much.  For another, I figure most of the people around me when I'm out and about in urban Hong Kong have no idea what I'm doing since they don't have eyes (and frequently ears too) for anything taking place outside the frame of those small screens on their phones anyway! ;D

Critter spotting highlights when hiking up Violet Hill this late summer's day :)

Can you easily spot the lizard?

 

Unfortunately for these two randy butterflies, the leaf near them

didn't cover them as much as they may have thought it did! ;D

 

Earlier today, a friend and I hiked from Wong Nai Chung Gap to Stanley Gap Road.  Along the way, we got up to Violet Hill's two highest peaks (the highest of which is 436 meters above sea level and the second highest of which is just three meters lower) and went on a section of the Tsz Lo Lan Shan Path which I find to be on the creepy and critter-filled side; what with it being where I've made a snake spotting and regularly come across a number of large spiders (with today's spider count on that section of trail totalling 15).

 

What with last Sunday's hike having been heavy on the steps (and sweat shed) but rather light on the critter spotting, I wasn't expecting to catch sight of as many wild creatures this late summer afternoon as I did; particularly since my friend and I were out again today in Tai Lam Country Park, albeit a different section of this large country park which occupies more than one fifth of the total land area of Hong Kong Island if you also include its Quarry Bay Extension into the equation.  But even before we made it up to the first of the two Violet Hill peaks whose ascents we included in today's hike itinerary, I already had made two critter spottings that I consider to be greater hike highlights than the "conquests" of the two peaks! 

 

First up was the spotting of a changeable lizard which is so called because it can change its body coloration.  Possessing a prominent crest along its neck and upper body, this agamid resembles a miniature dinosaur to my mind -- but only visually since, behavior-wise, it actually tends to be on the still and quiet side, with its defensive strategy tending towards the "freeze and hope that they didn't spot you" school rather something scarier.

 

Further up the northern side of Violet Hill, I came across two big butterflies which were more or less keeping as still as that changeable lizard because they were in the middle of a certain act that seems to require members of their species to not flit and flutter about the way they otherwise tend to do!  And while I have caught more than one pair of butterflies (and, for that matter, moths too) going at it previously, I have to say that this particular pair of Papilionidae were the largest butterflies I've seen performing this particular act.  

 

So, almost needless to say, I did get pretty excited upon catching sight of those two big butterflies (temporarily) connected to each other!  And it did really please me that they were so engrossed in their own affairs that they didn't fly away even when I went ahead and thrust my camera close to them in order to snap pictures of them from both the front as well as the back! ;D

Weeds on Fire shows that Hong Kong's a city with baseball (film review)

Publicity leaflet for Weeds on Fire

Weeds on Fire (Hong Kong, 2016)

- Steve Chan Chi Fat, director and co-scriptwriter (along with Wong Chi Yeung)

- Starring: Lam Yiu Sing, Tony Wu Tsz Tung, Liu Kai Chi

Back in 2008, the filmmaker who goes by the moniker Scud and veteran director Lawrence Lau (aka Lawrence Ah Mon) co-helmed a Category III movie starring real-life members of the Hong Kong national baseball team which was hardly your average sports drama.  And although it does possess segments showing baseball practice sessions and actual baseball games, City Without Baseball tends to be remembered far more for such as its nude shower scenes and exploration of bisexuality.

As might be expected of a cinematic work made with prize money from the government's First Feature Film Initiative, Hong Kong's second baseball movie is a quite a bit more conventional.  Inspired by the true story of the Fragrant Harbour's first youth baseball team, first-time director Steve Chan Chi Fat's Weeds on Fire had its world premiere at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival and has a former Hong Kong Chief Executive turning out to have a key role in the team's establishment decades before he ascended to that high office -- and, for that matter, more than 10 years before Hong Kong ceased to be ruled by the British.

On the other side of the political coin: Among the more surprising aspects of this earnest coming-of-age film cum sports movie is its makers looking to have gone out of their way to feature scenes in which a key character is seen on a street in Admiralty "occupied" by tents and pedestrians and make it so that this admirable offering's pragmatic yet inspirational message extolling the importance of taking half a step forward (rather than no step at all) can come across as applying to the Umbrella Movement as well as individual lives.  At the same time though, it's true enough that Weeds on Fire is mainly set in 1984 (seven years before its 25-year-old helmer was born!) rather than 2014 -- and largely focuses on personal rather than political dramas. 

As it so happened, 1984 also was the year that the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed.  But what more immediately concerns and affects the lives of this sport movie's underdog protagonists is the setting up by Mr Lo (Liu Kai Chi), the headmaster of a Band 3 secondary school in the (then) new town of Shatin, of a school baseball team that would have to play and compete with teams whose players were foreigners (Americans, Japanese, etc.) living in Hong Kong rather than fellow Hong Kongers.

Among the motley crew of students who Mr Lo recruits to play a sport that the vast majority of Hong Kongers have little knowledge of are a pair of friends who live in the same public housing estate but possess very different personalities.  Cocky extrovert Fan Chun Wai (professional baseball player Tony Wu Tsz Tung channelling -- and looking quite a bit like -- a young Bruce Lee) is assigned the leading role of pitcher and fancies himself to be the Shatin Martins' best player.  His quieter and less confident pal, Tse Chi Lung (Lam Yiu Sing), takes on the role of catcher, a position that has him literally donning a mask and protective gear on the field.  

Handsome and charismatic, Fan catches the eye and holds the attention more at first than the more restrained Lung.  Still, those who have seen their share of sports dramas will be able to comfortably figure out which of these two youths emerges as the real hero of the movie.  And it should be equally easy to predict how the Shatin Martins fare both in the very first game they play and also the baseball tournament that they then go on to take part.        

Far more difficult to fathom, actually, is how and why Principal Lo came to have a particular passion for baseball (rather than, say, soccer or some other more popular sport) since this never gets explained in the movie.  On the other hand, as Weeds on Fire proceeds to show, there's little question of his -- and the pioneering team he coached as well as established-- having played a big part in ensuring that there is at least a part of Hong Kong that's not a city without baseball after all!

My rating for the film: 7.5 

Taking the last train out of Central MTR station on Saturday night/Sunday morning

The scene at Central MTR station just before I boarded

the last train out of it for the night last Saturday

The electronic sign that greeted me on my arrival

at the MTR stop closest to my home!

 

Last Saturday night (or maybe I should say very early on Sunday morning?), I took the last train out of Central MTR station of the night for the very first time.  Unlike in Tokyo, it wasn't at all a crowded affair.  And despite Central MTR station being the closest MTR station to Lan Kwai Fong, Wyndham Street and other nightlife areas, I actually didn't notice anyone behaving badly (drunk or otherwise) at that late hour. 

 

Instead, the scenes at both Central MTR station and the one closest to my home from which I exited were actually on the quieter and more peaceful side than is regularly the case earlier in the day (and night).  In addition, not only was the train that I took so not packed that I easily found a seat to sit on for the entire journey but I didn't see anyone looking like they were in a particular hurry to get on it.  

 

All in all, it seemed like everyone who got into Central MTR station before the entrances were closed for the night were utterly confident that they would make it on to that last train before it left.  Also, that those folks who found that the MTR station entrances already closed knew that they would plenty of alternative transportation options to get home; what with their including taxis but also cheaper night buses and red minibuses. 

 

Something else that seems like a matter of course for people in Hong Kong is how there will be women as well as men out by themselves late at night, and that both females along with males will feel perfectly comfortable and safe in these situations.  After years of being told and feeling that it's dangerous for women to be out at night by themselves when living in places like the US (where it takes real effort to take back the night), this is something I really love about being in Hong Kong -- and don't think that I'll ever take for granted.       

On Po Toi, including Nam Kok Tsui and the Rugged Trail (Photo-essay)

Ever since my first visit to Po Toi back in September 2009, Hong Kong's southern-most island has been one that I've very much enjoyed visiting.  If only the kaito service were more frequent -- with there still been just four departures from Stanley to that rugged, rocky island on Sundays, one on Saturdays and none at all on weekdays (and just one from Aberdeen on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays along with a whopping two on Saturdays) -- I'd go more often.

Because the kaito service is limited and there's no overnight accomodation available on Po Toi, I've always tried to make sure to catch the second last kaito departing from the island (rather than the last kaito of the day because I worry about it getting too full).  Nonetheless, each time that I've been on Po Toi, I've managed to venture onto "new" ground; with my going on its Rugged Trail (which I previously couldn't visually make out!) on my second visit, and "off trail" to the island's southern tip on my third visit... ;b 

 

Looking northwards and upwards to Po Toi's lighthouse

from the island's Nam Kok Tsui (South Point)

 

Looking back at Po Toi's rocky southernmost tip 

from the hill on which the lighthouse is located

 

Even with people perched on it, Po Toi's Turtle Rock probably still 

is my favorite rock formation to photograph in Hong Kong :b

 

Some of its sign posts and railings are not in the greatest 

of conditions but I still enjoy hiking on this scenic island :)

 

Follow the Rugged Trail if you can, and you'll be rewarded

with cool scenery and a feeling that you're in a part of 

Hong Kong where not too many other people have ventured :)

 

Looking across the water to nearby Beaufort Island and

Hong Kong Island's Cape d'Aguilar over in the distance

 

 Viewing Po Toi's pier and Nam Kok Tsui to the east from 

this side of the island and elevation should give a good sense 

of how far I had hiked (already) that afternoon ;b

 

 A section of the Rugged Trail that threatened to turn my legs

to jelly, and which I was happy to be able to look back on later :)

Funa Funa Funassyi to the Nippon Budokan Hall!

Funassyi and fans at the Wired Cafe

in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, last month

Funassyi appearing cute and adorable 

in a very clean-looking Pear Suit #4 :b

As I write this blog post, a certain Pear Fairy who only descended to Earth in the wake of the March 11, 2011 Great Japan Earthquake to cheer up humans should have just finished headlining a concert at the iconic Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo which began at 7pm Japan time today, and will follow this up with another concert at Osaka's 16,000 capacity Osaka-Jo Hall on August 29th.  Collectively known as Nassyi Fes, these two musical events mark the first time that a yuru-chara -- anime-style mascot character -- has ever headlined a concert at these famous venues.    

A Japanese friend of mine who's lived outside of her home country for the past two decades or so reacted with shock as well as incredulity at the very idea that the super popular unofficial mascot from Funabashi called Funassyi (whose Twitter followers currently number 1.44 million) will be performing in concert at the Nippon Budokan Hall, never mind headlining it.  For, as she pointed out to me, this is the very venue where such legendary acts as the Beatles and Rolling Stones had previously graced.

Little did she know though that Funassyi's actually already performed at the hallowed hall, notably in Funa Santa attire as a guest at The Alfee's annual Christmas Eve concerts in 2013, 2014 (when the hyper-active Pear infamously fell off the stage!) and 2015.  Also, that this heavy metal music-loving Pear Fairy has appeared on MTV Japan and has signed with Universal Music Japan.

For the record: I love Funassyi's theme song and first CD single, Funa Funa Funassyi (whose official music video can be viewed here); and this before I came across the English translation as well as Romaji rendition of its inspirational and upbeat lyrics (which came courtesy of fellow Nashitomo (Pear Friend) chef01ish):- 

Funa-funa-funa-funa hyaha

Funassyi

Minna genkini hyaha

Funassyi

Mageraretattemo keraretattemo matatachiagareba iinashi darenimo
Aitenisarenakuttemo jibunno michio susumunashi

Donnani yogoreteshimatattemo kimisae waraeba iinashi

Kimiga kanashindeirutokiwa suguegaonisaserunashi

Fu-fu-fu-fu funassyi

Itsudemo genkini nashijiru busha

Fu-fu-fu-fu funassyi

Hajikete tanoshiku odoruyo

Funa-funa fu funa-funa fu fu

Funa-funa fu funa-funa fu fu

Funa-funa fu funa-funa fu fu

Funa-funa-funa-funa hyaha

Minna genkini hyahha

Keiki kaihuku hyaha

Minna janpude hyaha

Iyanakoto wasurete hyaha

Funa-funa-funa-funa hyaha

Funassyi

Everyone, "hyaha" cheerfully

Funassyi

Even when I'm thrown or kicked, it'll be all right if I stand up again

Even when nobody takes notice of me, it'll be alright if I go my own way

Even when I get dirty, I'll be happy if only you [were to] smile

When you feel sad, I'll make you smile soon

Fu-fu-fu-fu funassyi

Pear juice splashes always cheerfully

Fu-fu-fu-fu funassyi

I jump and dance happily

Funa-funa fu funa-funa fu fu
Funa-funa fu funa-funa fu fu

Funa-funa fu funa-funa fu fu

Funa-funa-funa-funa hyaha

Everyone, "hyaha" cheerfully

Economic recovery hyaha

Everyone, jump and "hyaha"

Forget bad things hyaha

(Incidentally, I find that what gets written out in Romaji as "hyaha" sounds more like "yappo" to my foreign ears! ;b)

Also, believe it or not, it's really thanks to this music-loving yuru-chara that I've come to know and adore a number of songs such as Mr Big's To Be With You as well as AKB 48's Koi Suru Fortune Cookie (the latter courtesy of this kawaii music video featuring the mischievous Pear and assorted friends)! :b

Wan Chai's Bread Tree has possibly my favorite "Western" lunch deal in the whole of Hong Kong!

How much do you reckon that this dish 

and accompanying drink cost?

 

The Wan Chai eatery that I've been going to

for more than nine years now! ;b

 

If you were to ask many -- possibly even most -- Hong Kongers what their favorite Western cuisine is, chances are that they'll tell you that it's Italian.  But the probability is pretty high too that much of what Hong Kongers look upon as Italian food will not be recognized as such by denizens of that boot-shaped Mediterranean country; what with pizzas found in Hong Kong likely to feature sweet corn and canned tuna toppings and such!

 

In addition, there's the irony that my favorite "Italian" restaurants in Hong Kong include branches of Pizza Express (a restaurant chain with British origins that's now owned by a Beijing-based company), New York Italian joint Carbone and Sagrantino, a Japanese-owned restaurant offering Tokyo-style Italian cuisine.  And then there's Bread Tree, a distinctly Hong Kong-style budget eatery which was a favorite of pretty much everyone at the company I first worked for in the Big Lychee -- and has remained a favorite of mine long after I stopped working in a part of Hong Kong where Bread Tree makes deliveries to.  

 

When I mentioned to an ex-colleague turned friend a couple of evenings ago that I had gone to Bread Tree for lunch earlier in the day, she laughed and asked me whether I had ordered the dish marked L8 on its menu, and laughed some more when I confirmed that I had indeed done so.  She proceeded to remind me that she and our then boss also would regularly order that dish: which features what's described as a herb tomato meat sauce on the menu but tastes like an addictive bolognese sauce that's sweeter than usual and a choice of pasta (spaghetti, linguine, fusili, etc.), rice or mashed potato, and a second choice of pumpkin, eggplant (aubergine in British English), zucchini (or courgettes in British English) or a fried egg for the topping!

 

Whereas my friend pretty much always went for the eggplant topping, I tend to opt for either the pumpkin or zucchini -- and also have been known to go for the fried egg every once in a while.  But both of us tend to stick to the spaghetti pasta option -- and agree that that meat sauce is something really special.  To judge by her laughter though, she probably hasn't thought to go there since she left the company.  I, on the other hand, have continued to go there -- and in fact, I often expressly go to Wan Chai to lunch at Bread Tree since I still fairly regularly have cravings for this particular dish!

 

Its exterior may not look like much; especially as these days, some letters have fallen off from the sign above its entrance.  Actually, its interior doesn't look like much either; being on the cramped and spartan side.  But I find the furnishings comfortable enough, particularly when you go during off-peak hours when you can get a table to yourself (rather than have to daap toi (share a table with people you don't know)).     

 

And then there's the price, which is hard to beat.  Even with (incremental) increases over the years, that dish plus a cold drink (like a glass of iced lemon tea) still costs just HK$41 (~US$5.29); making Bread Tree's L8 option possibly my favorite "Western" lunch deal in the whole of Hong Kong! :b

Sweating buckets while going along thousands of steps on a high humidity day

It takes many steps to get this far above the city!

A section of the 599 step Jacob's Ladder

located on Hong Kong Island

Although today (with maximum temperatures of "only" around 33 degrees Celsius (~91.4 degrees Fahrenheit) was not the hottest day that I've been out hiking, it may well be among the most humid.  The air felt thick and muggy this afternoon, and it was so very easy to get drenched with sweat.  More than incidentally, I'm one of those people who sweats so much that I'd be a great test subject for sunscreen that doesn't get washed off easily by one's own perspiration.  So on days like this, I end up feeling like it's no use putting any of that stuff on me!   

Some 30 minutes into today's hike, my palms were wet with sweat as well as my limbs and other parts of me that normally get covered with perspiration whenever I'm having a good exercise.  And about two thirds into this afternoon's outing, large swathes of my olive green-colored shorts had the kind of stains that got me worried that people might think that I had the kind of "accident" that comes from not having been able to make it to a toilet in time!

By the time I got home some four hours later, I felt really drained of energy.  And my pedometer registering 18,365 steps only told part of the story since the great bulk of the steps I took today were on stairs leading uphill -- first to 424-meter-high Siu Ma Shan and then 435-meter-high Mount Butler.  Also, after getting to the top of Mount Butler, there came a nervy descent down the Jacob's Ladder on Hong Kong Island that I think is quite a bit steeper than the section of trail bearing the same name over on the Sai Kung Peninsula -- and potentially more slippery than usual this afternoon because its steps were on the wet side and covered with lots of fallen leaves.

But even though today's excursion was on the exhausting side, it actually was pretty fun to be outdoors this afternoon with a couple of hiking buddies and on a trail which offered up a number of interesting sights and view bonanzas.  So I'd definitely much rather be out there than, say, getting a similar exercise on a Stairmaster in a gym!   

And while it's true enough that this particular hiking trail (which began and ended pretty much at sea level but saw us scaling a couple of hills in between) would be significantly easier to go along in cooler and drier conditions, the chances also are high that the visibility just wouldn't be as good as it is on a summer day like today.  Also, masochist that I am, I figure that I should reserve cooler days for even more challenging hikes than this one! ;b       

Nagasaki: Memories of My Son is a rare Yoji Yamada misstep (film review)

A World War II memorial to the unknown soldier located 

in the grounds of Kyoto's Ryozen Kannon Temple

Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (Japan, 2015)

- Yoji Yamada, director

- Starring: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Kazunari Ninomiya, Haru Kuroki, Kenichi Kato

In 1982, I visited Japan for the very first time.  Among the places I went to on that trip are ones that I've re-visited, such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka and the Aso Caldera.  But I've yet to return to the Japanese city which may well have left the deepest impression of the trip on me: Nagasaki, one of the two cities in the country which will forever be associated with the atom bomb.

A decade after my maiden visit to Japan, I viewed a film whose female protagonist was an elderly resident of Nagasaki who had been in the area when the atom bomb nicknamed 'Fat Man' was dropped over the city.  Akira Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August is considered to be a minor work of the late Japanese cinema giant but I was very moved by it all the same.  And I expected to be similarly affected when viewing another drama centering on a Nagasaki woman who managed to survive the Second World War; this one made by an octogenarian filmmaker -- many of whose other works (including What a Wonderful Family!, The Yellow Handkerchief (1977) and installments of the Tora-san series) I love -- and released in its native Japan 70 years after World War II came to a close.  

Set closer to the end of the Second World War then Akira Kurosawa's 1991 film, Yoji Yamada's Nagasaki: Memories of My Son takes place in a Japan now at peace but still struggling to rebuild shattered lives (along with physically devastated cities), and facing hard economic times.  Living in a house in the hilly outskirts of the city, Nobuko Fukuhara (Sayuri Yoshinaga) works as a midwife and is able to come by hard-to-get items courtesy of a friendly black marketer (Kenichi Kato).  But she remains badly hurt psychologically by having lost close family members, particularly her younger son Koji (Kazunari Ninomiya) -- who effectively vanished into thin air, having been one of the thousands incinerated by the blast of the atom bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.

The apple of Nobuko's eye, Koji was studying to be a doctor and in love with Machiko (Haru Kuroki) when tragedy struck.  On the third anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing, Nobuko tells the also still grieving younger woman -- who treats Nobuko like she's her beloved mother-in-law, regularly visiting her home and trying to make her life more pleasant in various ways -- that it's time for them to let go of Koji.  That evening, Koji's ghost returns to visit his mother from "the other side"; an event which Nobuko reacts to with far more happiness than shock -- and definitely minus any horror! 

From then on, much of Nagasaki: Memories of My Son plays out like a two-handed theatrical work featuring lots of dialogue and reminiscing.  Koji comes and goes from the house (including once to go watch a movie in a cinema!), and Nobuko continues responding to requests for help to deliver babies into this post-atom bomb explosion world.  But the two get to spending a not significant amount of time catching up as well as looking back; over the course of which strong emotions get divulged, expressed and need to be wrestled with.

Still, while much emotion is on show in the film -- and also a number of scenes that look to be geared at getting viewers to reach for tissues or handkerchiefs -- I actually ended up feeling more emotionally distanced from what unfolded on screen than I had expected to be.  Perhaps it didn't help that there was a "stagey" quality to the proceedings.  Actually though, I reckon that the biggest problem I had with the film was how much it took place in a veritable vacumn which not only privileged the interactions between mother and son above all others but also opted to exclude mention of any bloodshed and atrocities wreaked by Japanese people in the days, months and years leading up to the bombing of Nagasaki (and Hiroshima three days earlier).  

Put another way: Yes, the damage and devastation caused by the atom bombs was absolutely awful, and it can seem rather ironic that one of the targeted cities was Nagasaki -- with its significant Japanese Christian population and history, never mind people (like Koji) who loved Western classical music and such.  But those weapons of mass destruction didn't just drop out of the sky for no reason!  And Yoji Yamada (born in 1931, and consequently one of the few active filmmakers today who lived through the Second World War) really would have done more of a service to the film's audience -- local Japanese or otherwise -- and probably also made the movie better by acknowledging that. 

My rating for this film: 6.0