Shouts, a scuffle and flag-waving protesters greeted the Japanese opening of The Cove, a controversial Oscar-winning documentary about a grisly annual dolphin hunt.
The movie, which shows dolphins being herded into a cove and then slaughtered, has met with fierce opposition in Japan from groups who say it is “anti-Japanese” and an affront to traditional culture.
Dozens of police and more than 50 protesters, both for and against the screening, faced off in front of a cinema in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“Don’t bully the fishermen!” read one banner. Another protester waved the Japanese Imperial flag.
“Australia kills a total of 3 million kangaroos per year, but yet no one does anything about it,” said 62-year-old Nobuo Kikuchi as he held a sign saying “Stop Racial Discrimination against Japanese.”
“What I would like to know is why the Japanese have become a target,” Kikuchi said.
Fears that protests might inconvenience moviegoers have prompted cancellations at two cinemas in Tokyo and one in Osaka that had originally planned to screen the film, according to Unplugged, the distributor of the film in Japan.
Directed by former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, the documentary follows a group of eco-activists who struggle with Japanese police and fishermen to gain access to a secluded cove in Taiji, southern Japan, long known as a whaling center.
Moviegoers took the controversy in stride, with some saying they just wanted to know what was going on.
“Japanese killing and eating dolphins is a true fact but yet many don’t know much about it. This is why we want to learn about it and see this film,” Tetsushi Matsuoka, 33, said.
Japan has long maintained that killing and eating whales is a long cherished cultural tradition, and conducts annual hunts under the name of research whaling.
New Zealander Pete Bethune is currently under trial in Tokyo for boarding a Japanese vessel in an attempt to stop Japan’s annual whale hunt in the Antarctic. A verdict is due on Wednesday.
In the version of the film screened in Japan, the faces of fishermen and others in Taiji are blurred to hide their identity.
A statement from the cinema said they were “relieved.”
“We’d really like to thank the movie theaters and staff who worked hard for this opening, despite the controversy,” Takeshi Kato of Unplugged said in a statement.
Eighteen other cinemas across Japan plan to screen the movie at a later date.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS