Filmmaker in search of a plot

Like many Japanese visitors, filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda's Taiwan trip included eating dumplings at Ding Tai Feng (鼎泰豐), trying a spicy hot pot (麻辣火鍋) and then sipping oolong tea at a Taiwanese friend's house. But Koreeda has another purpose on this trip -- to find his Taiwanese roots.

He carried a thick photo album full of yellowish photos, an album full of his father's old memories of Taiwan for this trip, which was originally planned to promote his Cannes-winning film Nobody Knows.

Nobody Knows elevated the 12-year-old actor Yagira Yuya to star status at last year's Cannes Film Festival. He became the youngest Best Actor winner in the history of the festival. Also, the film reconfirmed Koreeda's reputation as one of the most significant figures in contemporary Japanese cinema.

Having made just four feature films, he has won awards in Venice and Cannes for each of them. Even better, Nobody Knows has grossed more than 300 million yen (NT$80 million), a box office record for him.

But during Koreeda's trip to this country two weeks ago, he seemed less excited about his recent successes than he was to discover the old faces of Taiwan, the stories his father Kanezo Koreeda used to tell him on his sickbed.

Arriving at the Grand Hotel (圓山大飯店), Koreeda saw a stele saying "yuanshan" (圓山). He seemed extra excited and asked his interpreter, "Was there a Yuanshan Shrine?" When he found there was he took out a picture of his father, who was standing beside the stele, and started filming.

Koreeda's grandfather was from Okinawa. "My grandfather came to Taiwan in order to pursue my grandmother, an Okinawan living in Taiwan," he said. Koreeda said he is making a documentary about the impact of war on people and their memories.

The film, which will be aired on Fuji TV Station, will talk about Japan sending its troops to Iraq. "I want to talk about the idea of victimization and how it influences peoples' minds and triggers revenge and hatred. This is why I wanted to film Taiwan. I wanted to ask people of my father's generation about their ideas about war," Koreeda said.

Koreeda went to Tainan Second High School (台南二中) in Tainan City, his father's alma mater, to find old documents and photos. He also went to visit Tsai Tung-ying (蔡東瀛), his father's best friend, who was in hospital.

"I was not close to my father until he was cold and sick. I sometimes feel it's a little too late to have this documentary idea about Taiwan. I am now looking for his Taiwanese roots, but it would have been more profound to have my father taking the trip with me," said Koreeda. Kanezo Koreeda passed away four years ago.

Born in Tokyo in 1962, Koreeda originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 he went on to become an assistant director at TV Man Union. He sneaked off to film Lessons from Calf (1991) and his first feature, Maboroshi No Hikari (1995) won him Best Director at Venice Film Festival. It has also made a star of actress Esumi Makiko, then virtually unknown but now an established actress in Japan.

"It is true that Hou Hsiao-hsien's (侯孝賢) films have had a deep impact on me," Koreeda said.

Maboroshi No Hikari pays tribute to Hou. In that film, Koreeda used the music of Chen Ming-chang (陳明章), the same composer for Hou's Dust In the Wind (戀戀風塵).