Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

Jane Fonda played as ambitious journalist who happened to witness a very serious nuclear accident, that revealed how ridiculous nuclear industry functioned seeking profit in priority to safety.

When it was first shown in public, Three Mile Island accident occurred. The film seemed to be a preview of that accident. Since then, there was no new nuclear power plant constructed in the US except military purpose.

Now the same type and even much more severe accident occurred last year in Japan, Fukushima accident. The China Syndrome-like phenomenon occurred. Nuclear fuels may have melted down to the ground and theoretically went to the opposite side of the earth. No one yet knows how serious the damage was.   

I actually watched the film several years ago on TV. At that time it was just suspense action film to me. Now I watched the film on DVD I bought. It was totally different story to me. It was no longer fiction. All the words and events occurred in the film were too much familiar to me, and other ordinary Japanese. I fully understand why water level in a reactor is important in terms of managing nuclear energy.

I also learned "No Nukes" movement existed even before Fukushima, Chernobyl and TMI.

It was very much late 1970's style film. Anti-big power type of message was in as anti-Vietnam war activist played main role and detailed and obvious description of how greedy the corporations are. Late 1970's was post-Vietnam war era, which people have become suspicous of authorities.

In fact we have to, we always had to. In reality everyone had been too much reliant on authorities, believing what they say is true.

Now we have changed such attitude since Fukushima. Less people believe what politicians, scientists say. People take actions gathering near the parliament building and prime minister's office, demanding direct voting on nuclear energy policy.

I hope this movement would be called "The Japan Syndrome."  

Japanese actors playing Roman people in Hadrian era of Roman Empire.

One Roman architect of the bath time slipps to modern Japan and experience modern style bath.

All dialogues are done in Japanese except some short Latin dialogues. 

Interesting thing was viewers could learn how Roman Empire functioned. How Roman viewed other parts of the world, and how slavery functioned. How important it was for the Emperor Hadrian to be deifeid after retirement.

One of the shocking thing shown was Emperor Hadrian had a boy lover and he was very much saddened by the boy's death. It was very openly depicted in the film maybe because it was Japanese film. In the West, such depicting would be very controversial.

The film was in fact, comedy. But it can be great textbook to learn Roman Empire stuff. Since it is made by Japanese from Japanese perspective, portrayal of Roman people looked very neutral. Not too religious and not too ideological. Hope the film will be released in Italy and other parts of the world.