Rating: 
Summary: "American heroes"?!?
Review: A very "heroic" moment in American, or for that matter, world, history--dropping an atomic bomb on a city of 350,000 men, women and children (then, again, 3 days later over a church in Nagsaki)! All of this talk of "heroes" is ridiculous. There are no heroes in war. There is just death. Anyone who has been in war or seen it firsthand will tell you that. Watch this film, read the book (which is quite different from Imamura's breathtaking film), and contemplate what the US has unleashed in the world: the possibility of nuclear destruction of not one city or country, but the entire planet. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are America's guilty conscience. It is well past time for its citizens to take a look at the costs of warfare and imperialism in the Nuclear Age; not to look away, cowardly, or spout some nonsense about "heroes". This film, and the book upon which it is based, is NOT a re-writing of "history". It IS history. A history that Americans are NOT taught. A history that we are too brainwashed to even give a fair hearing. Lopez, Mariposa, etc., you make me ashamed to be an American.
Rating:
Summary: "American heroes"?!?
Review: A very "heroic" moment in American, or for that matter, world, history--dropping an atomic bomb on a city of 350,000 men, women and children (then, again, 3 days later over a church in Nagsaki)! All of this talk of "heroes" is ridiculous. There are no heroes in war. There is just death. Anyone who has been in war or seen it firsthand will tell you that. Watch this film, read the book (which is quite different from Imamura's breathtaking film), and contemplate what the US has unleashed in the world: the possibility of nuclear destruction of not one city or country, but the entire planet. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are America's guilty conscience. It is well past time for its citizens to take a look at the costs of warfare and imperialism in the Nuclear Age; not to look away, cowardly, or spout some nonsense about "heroes". This film, and the book upon which it is based, is NOT a re-writing of "history". It IS history. A history that Americans are NOT taught. A history that we are too brainwashed to even give a fair hearing. Lopez, Mariposa, etc., you make me ashamed to be an American.
Rating: 
Summary: yeesh! my vote for most depressing movie ever
Review: actually I was going to write a review about how depressing this movie is, but what Mariposa and Lopez wrote (who I suspect are the same person) depressed me even more.
Wow, what a sabre-rattling cornball!
Shohei Imamura is one of my favorite directors and this is an excellent film on a worthy subject. But if you plan to see it, prepare to be depressed.
The final scene really got to me. It was very haunting and sad.
Rating:
Summary: Mariposa, et al, is a MORON!
Review: All of us real patriots know who the villians in World War II were. The Japanese started the second world war on December 7th, and we ended it. Any patriot will attest to the fact that our victory was one of our finest moments and still is.
Rating: 
Summary: I agree with Margo
Review: All of us real patriots know who the villians in World War II were. The Japanese started the second world war on December 7th, and we ended it. Any patriot will attest to the fact that our victory was one of our finest moments and still is.
Rating:
Summary: Black Rain
Review: Any attack on civillians during war is intolerable. This movie teaches that we should have empathy for those civillians - empathy being Anti-American apparently.
Rating:
Summary: A MASTERPIECE
Review: BLACK RAIN is the only movie of director Shohei Imamura that can be found in the DVD standard. It's a pity since this director is still one of the most interesting japanese directors even if he's now 72 years old. Winner of two Cannes Palmes d'Or ith THE EEL and THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA, he isn't properly speaking a newcomer but his work deserves to be known by a wider audience.The black rain is the name Japanese people have given to the rain that fell on Hiroshima right after the nuclear bombing of this island. Black and deadly. The movie, shot in black and white, tells the story of a couple of survivors and their struggle to stay alive and be part of the new japanese society born after the emperor's surrender. One could say that BLACK RAIN's rythm is slow but I think it's a courageous choice of Shohei Imamura in order that we feel the fear of these people waiting their whole life for the first signs of the inevitable diseases provoked by radioactivity. In between, they try to survive like Yasuko, the heroin, whose search for a husband is pathetic. Two scenes will stay in your memory. Firstly, the description of Hiroshima in comparison of which those horror movies Hollywood produces by the dozen seem, for the least, ridiculous. And this scene when Yasuko, filled with hope, waits for a shining rainbow, symbolizing life. You wait with her, with all your heart, until you remember that this film is shot in black and white. Simply magistral. A scene access as sole extra-feature. A DVD for your library.
Rating: 
Summary: I haven't seen the movie or read the book
Review: But I am outraged to the comments Mariposa and Lopez left behind. First of all, Mariposa, the Japanese did NOT start the Second World War. The day that America was involved with World War II is not the day the war began. The World War began in 1939 when Germany and an Anglo-French coalition conflicted which eventually widened to the rest of Europe and resulted in the genocide of Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, Gypsies, the mentally retarded, the physically handicapped, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Secondly, how can you say that dropping an atomic bomb on innocent civilians is right and our "finest moment" and still be a "real patriot"? To say such a thing shows not your love for America, but your fascist and generalizing opinions on a certain race. And if you think that the Japanese are evil and should die because of their act of terrorism upon Pearl Harbor, do you agree that all Muslims should die for 9/11? Do you think that all British people should die because King George III was unfair to the American colonists?
I agree that the Japanese have done some terrible things such as the Rape of Nanking and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but hasn't America done terrible things as well? What nation or group of people has not committed malicious acts within their history? What about slavery and lynching and creating racist laws and concentration camps and the Philippines War and police violently beating peaceful protestors? You can't say that every single Japanese person deserved the atomic bomb. Japan's citizens do not neccessarily represent their leader's actions as America's citizens do not neccessarily represent their President's decisions. Please do tell me if you can't find an action or decision one of our presidents have done/made that you weren't involved with or maybe even innocent of and didn't agree with it.
But if they did deserve the atomic bomb then what do we deserve? For all the malicious acts and crimes against others America has committed, we deserve the same pain that we gave the Japanese and any other country we have hurt. And please do not say, "This person is only saying this because this person's Japanese." That is outright unfair and cruel. I wish people could at least try to understand the other side of an issue.
And a comment to "Mariposa, et al, is a MORON!; June 27, 2004; Reviewer: A viewer" I agree with your comment up to "Mariposa and other Floridian inbreds..." You just like Mariposa and Lopez are generalizing people. Not to mention you are bringing in a topic that doesn't even relate to Black Rain. And Bush's war is -not- about oil. I'm not saying I'm for the war, but you are mistaken.
And to T. Tan "the apprentice", are you saying that all Latin Americans are "bimbos"? And how do you know that Mariposa and Lopez haven't read the book or seen the movie? They said nothing of the sort or even implied it.
Note: I gave three stars because I wanted to be neutral since I didn't see the movie or read the book. Maybe sometime I will and if my opinion changes I'll write here again if possible.
Rating:
Summary: Life after the bombs: impressive/profound human interest
Review: Immamura's tour de force about a girl and her blood relatives' attempt to go on with life after surviving the August '45 bombing. While the film has been described as "restrained", it is also possible to receive the film as an incredibly eruptive effort: one that portrays its characters *always* on the verge of breaking down -- both physically and mentally -- from the wholly destructive and lingering effects of the bombs. While the ending escalates to full-blown helplessness (by using a self-reflexive comment about the limits of black and white film), the acting is an absolute success, particularly by the girl and the carver that loves her.
Rating:
Summary: Life after the bombs: impressive/profound human interest
Review: Immamura's tour de force about a girl and her blood relatives' attempt to go on with life after surviving the August '45 bombing. While the film has been described as "restrained", it is also possible to receive the film as an incredibly eruptive effort: one that portrays its characters *always* on the verge of breaking down -- both physically and mentally -- from the wholly destructive and lingering effects of the bombs. While the ending escalates to full-blown helplessness (by using a self-reflexive comment about the limits of black and white film), the acting is an absolute success, particularly by the girl and the carver that loves her.
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