Japanese film ‘Zegen’ by Shohei Imamura and starring Mitsuko Baishô, Bang-ho Cho, Yuki Furutachi will be shown, as a part of Week of Japanese Film, on 23 March at 7.30 p.m. in Meeting Point Cinema.
The film talks about Muraoka Iheiji who is a Japanese nationalist who comes ashore to Hong Kong in 1901 to discover there is a number of women being held as prostitutes by local pirates. What he doesn’t realize is that his own government has washed hands of them; a consular official advises him to become a zegen, or a pander. He decides for the greater good of Japan to sell the women rather than send them home, since as prostitutes, they can make money and send it home to their parents, who will then pay taxes to the nation…The film serves as one of the very few depictions of the Japanese use of ‘comfort women’.
The entrance is free for all film projections.
