Director: Yukisada Isao Duration: 122 MinutesAlmost two years ago in my War and Memory in Japanese Film Class I watched a film called Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence by the controversial film director Oshima Nagisa. One memorable scene in this film, amongst many others, is the cruelty displayed played by Sgt. Hara, Beat Takeshi, towards an imprisoned soldier named "Kanemoto." However, this is not the soldier's real name. He, like thousands of other Korean men, was forced to adopt Japanese names, because of the difficulty for the Japanese to pronounce Korean names, and serve in the Japanese military. Of course, this character comes to a pretty brutal end. Having to write a paper comparing one of the films in the class with another, I decided to compare how the Other is represented in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and Yukisada Isao's Go and let me say that it was indeed an eye-opening experience.Sugihara seems like a normal enough Japanese high school kid. He goes to class, plays basketball, reads books that his friends lend, etc. However, there is something different about Sugihara: he is not Japanese, but Korean, and not South Korean, but North Korean. Attending North Korean school until the time he enters high school. Sugihara spent his school days marching, learning the ideologies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and participating in classes devoted to self-criticism, which basically consisted of the teacher Mr. Kim beating students who broke the rule of speaking Japanese in school, but after he gets caught by the police after he and his friend Tawake and Wonsu attempt the Super Great Chicken Run, Sugihara ran in front of a train without getting killed, his father changes the family's nationality to South Korean, and soon after Sugihara decides to attend a Japanese high school. However, things do not go easy for our hero.Being a Korean, although born and raised in Japan, Sugihara is bullied at his new school. However, unlike many who are bullied, Sugihara knows how to fight from studying boxing with his father and after a particular fight where he takes on the school's entire basketball team; he becomes the target of students who want to prove themselves as fighters. He defeats all of them quite easily. The ideas of race and nation never crossed Sugihara's mind until one night at a birthday party for his friend a girl named Sakurai shows considerable interest in him. As their relationship grows, the burden of revealing his Korean heritage begins to weigh heavily on Sugihara. However, he is afraid that revealing his background will destroy the precious relationship he has developed with Sakurai.When Iwai Shunji released Swallowtail Butterfly in 1996 considerable interest within Japan's film industry was placed on minorities in Japan and films such as Yamamoto Masashi's Junk Food were created. However, almost four decades before similar issues were taken up by Oshima Nagisa in Death by Hanging and Imamura Shohei' My Second Younger Brother and more recent films tackling the issue include Sai Yoichi's, of Korean stock himself, Blood and Bones. However, where most of these films are quite serious, Go is a quite enjoyable film filled with humor while not becoming too didactic as a social commentary. The first half of the film is truly a delight with Sugihara's unusual relationships with his parents and the growth of his affection for Sakurai. The second half of the film tries to be a bit heavier and it sometimes comes off as being a bit forced. However, Go is a valuable film in introducing viewers to one group of Japan's little known minorities.

"This is a storyabout my love." With the movie GO young Sugihara (wonderfully portrayed by Yôsuke KUBOZUKA) tells his story-the story about his life, the story of a generation, of two nations, but most of all a story about his love. He tells his story in his own speed, his own pictures-sometimes fast forwarding (but never hectic), sometimes in slow motion, he speeds forward, he looks back, yet doesn't lose count. GO for freedom It's not easy being Sugihara--raised as a Zainichi, a Korean who lives in Japan, by a father (helplessly lost: Tsutomu YAMAZAKI) who usually speaks with his fists and who'd rather be a Spaniard, a mother (secretly unhappy: Shinobu OTAKE) who is always trying to run away and this time maybe for good; his friends live in constant war with society (and the police). Violence is a daily routine, at home and at the North-Korean school Sugihara attends, where corporal punishment is a legitimate way of teaching and speaking Japanese is strictly prohibited. So Sugihara tries to fight through, constantly angry, constantly hostile. GO for love But something changes when Sugihara starts to visit a Japanese school, to outrun his patriotic teachers and their brainwashing methods, and first meets Sakurai (lovely: Kou SHIBASAKI) who decides that he should become her boyfriend. Sugihara's attention turns from violence to Shakespeare, but the anger grows to live among people whose intolerance is only exceeded by it's ignorance. And he learns that he will have to fight for acceptance-with words, with bare knuckles and maybe all alone, because Sakurai turns away from him when she finds out he's not Japanese. But he also understands that nobody is really free from prejudices, when one night he meets a young Japanese police officer who actually listens to him. GO to fight „No soy coreano; ni soy happones; jo soy desaraigardo" (I'm neither Korean, nor Japanese, I'm just grass without roots), Sugihara explains to his father and tells him about his future plans: He wants to attend College, wants to take a chance on his life. But most of all, he wants to accept and respect himself, for that, he understands, is the necessary first step. And because GO is a film about love, Sakurai returns to him, having overcome the xenophobia indoctrinated on her by her father, giving their love another chance. GO is fast, GO has speed, GO has action, GO has humour and GO has love. Director Isao YUKISADA characterizes a generation, a society, a nation and creates something unique: he lends the desperate his voice, that is loud enough to be heard without pointing fingers. GO is like it's protagonist-fresh, energetic and hungry for life; unwilling to give in to his fate.c by Leska Beikircher

I liked this movie, although I didn't love it. The film centers on the prejudice experienced by a Korean teenager living in Japan; he doesn't fit in with Koreans or the Japanese. But he utters many times in the film, "This is my love story," and while he does have a love interest, it is a rather small part. I liked how this film looked at the different tensions of race, life, and love.The acting was pretty great. The lead actor was very convincing as the teenager who is conflicted between two identities. He overacted the last scene, but there is this one very beautiful scene where he just sits and talks to a police officer. It's pretty awesome: very simple and beautiful. Kou Shibasaki as his love interest is pretty good as well, and she won the Japanese equivalent of the Oscar for her role in this. She makes the most of the relatively short amount of screen time she has, and we can see why the main character would fall in love with her.Not the best Japanese movie I've ever seen, but still pretty good. Worth your while. 7/10

i saw this film at the berlin film festival where it was part of the 'panorama' showings (not in the actual competition itself). it was perhaps unhelpfully billed as a film about the 'taboo of relationships between japanese and koreans'. i wouldn't say that it was particularly about that at all - more like a teenager's struggle for identity.i found it to be an excellent film. funny, touching and well-played. it deserves some international success.