''The Harimaya Bridge'' is a 2009 film written and directed by American filmmaker

Aaron Woolfolk Aaron Woolfolk (born in Oakland, California) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and playwright. He shot his first feature film ''The Harimaya Bridge'' in Kōchi Prefecture, Japan and San Francisco. The film had a nationwide ...

. It was filmed in

Kōchi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kōchi Prefecture has a population of 757,914 (1 December 2011) and has a geographic area of 7,103 km2 (2,742 sq mi). Kōchi Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the northwest and ...

, Japan and

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, U.S.A.See an article in IMDb, External links, below. The film had a nationwide theatrical release in Japan in 2009 and an independent theatrical release in the United States in 2010. The film was released on DVD in Japan at the end of 2009 and was released on DVD and video-on-demand by

Funimation Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...

in the United States in 2011.See an article in the Japanese official website, External links, below. The title references the Harimaya bridge in

Kochi city Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part ...

, which is connected to a well-known Japanese story about forbidden love.

Japan National Tourism Organization The , JNTO, provides information about Japan to promote travel to and in the country. It was established in 1964 and its headquarters are in Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. The JNTO operates Tourist Information Centers (TICs) as well as a website. ...

br>Harimaya-bashi Bridge
Retrieved December 16, 2015 The film is produced by Ko Mori and

. Executive producers are

Danny Glover Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films include ...

, Naoshi Yoda, and John Kim. Co-producers are Muneyuki Kii and

Tatsuya Kimura is a Japanese film producer and a critic, and also as known as , a music producer. :ja:木村立哉, 17:41, 2 November 2008 Biography Tatsuya Kimura was born in 1964 in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. Debuted as a critic in his high school da ...

. Associate producers are James Lane and Lee Rudnicki. The film's theme song, " Shūten: Kimi no Ude no Naka", was sung by Japanese singer

Misono , publicly known mononymously as Misono (stylized as misono), is a Japanese singer-songwriter and TV personality. She was born in Kyoto, Japan, and is the younger sister of singer Koda Kumi. Career In 2000, Misono participated in the summer v ...

, who released the song as her 13th single.

Plot

The story concerns an American man who must travel to rural Japan after his estranged son dies there in a traffic accident. While there, he discovers some secrets his son left behind. The Harimaya Bridge is a film about racism and forgiveness. The main character lost his son and he had to go to Japan to retrieve some of his sons paintings. The father (main character) had a very strong dislike for the Japanese people. He was very rude towards them in the beginning. He disrespected their culture as well on several occasions. One time he ignored the Japanese people when they told him to take off his shoes when he entered the home he was staying them. It took them a few minutes to get him to respect their wish and take off his shoes. While the father was in Japan he found out many things he never knew about his son. For one, his son was married to a Japanese woman and they had a child together. The father and his son clearly did not share a strong, loving and respectful relationship. In one scene, The two got in a fight and the father kicked the son out of the home. This was the last straw for the son and may have caused him to move to Japan and keep his life under wraps from his father. Towards the end of the film the father experienced some things that made him confront his hatred and disrespectfulness towards the Japanese. His first encounter with his granddaughter is what made him change.

Cast

Ben Guillory Ben Guillory (born Bennet Guillory on November 7, 1949 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American actor, theatre producer and director. Biography Raised in San Francisco, California, Guillory co-founded the Robey Theatre Company in honor of ac ...

as Daniel Holder *

Saki Takaoka is a Japanese actress. Her uncle is the jazz pianist Yōsuke Yamashita. She won the award for best actress at the 19th Hochi Film Award for ''Crest of Betrayal''. Filmography Film * ''cf girl'' (''cfガール'', 1989) * ''Swimming Upstream' ...

as Noriko Kubo *

Misa Shimizu is a Japanese actress. She made her screen debut by winning the heroine audition for 1987 film ''Shōnan Bōsōzoku''. She starred in NHK's morning drama series ''Seishun Kazoku'' in 1989. She portrayed Keiko, the female protagonist, in Palme d ...

as Yuiko Hara *

as Joseph Holder *

as Saita Nakayama * Honoka Ishibashi as Emi Osaki * Victor Grant as Mickey Holder * A'da Alison Woolfolk as Lindsey Holder *

Miho Shiraishi is a Japanese actress from Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Filmography Film * ''Shiroi Fune'' (2002) * '' Swing Girls'' (2004) ''as Yayoi Itami'' * ''Densha Otoko'' (2005) ''cameo'' * ''The Harimaya Bridge'' (2009) ''as Kayo Takeuchi'' * ''Halfway ...

as Kayo Takeuchi *

Akira Hamada Akira may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Akira'' (franchise), a Japanese cyberpunk franchise ** ''Akira'' (manga), a 1980s cyberpunk manga by Katsuhiro Otomo ** ''Akira'' (1988 film), an anime film adaptation of the manga ** ''Akira'' (vide ...

as Principal Shimura *

Junkichi Orimoto was a Japanese actor. Orimoto often worked with Kinji Fukasaku and Sadao Nakajima. He started his acting career at the Shinkyō theatre company in 1949. His first film appearance was in the 1952 film ''Yamabiko Gakkō'' directed by Tadashi Imai. ...

as Tomoki Shide *

Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cro ...

as Albert Tunney *

Hajime Yamazaki is the Japanese word meaning . In the Japanese traditional martial arts such as karate, judo, aikido, Kūdō and kendo, it is a verbal command to "begin". Hajime is also a common Japanese given name for males. In the Amami Islands, Hajime (元) i ...

as Kunji Inoue *

Toshiyuki Kitami Toshiyuki is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Toshiyuki can be written using different combinations of kanji characters. Here are some examples: *敏幸, "agile, happiness" *敏行, "agile, go" *敏之, "agile, of" *敏志, "ag ...

as Mr. Kubo *

Yukiko Kashiwagi is a Japanese actress and was the wife of Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto from 1971 until his death in 1985. In the 1970s, Kashiwagi retired from her career as an actress and instead presented a series of welfare performances with her husband in chi ...

as Ms. Kubo

References

External links

*
The Harimaya Bridge
' - U.S. Official website, link decayed and is now just a page with some pictures of bridges. *
The Harimaya Bridge はりまや橋
' - Japanese Official website (ja) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harimaya Bridge 2009 films Japanese drama films 2000s Japanese-language films African-American films Films set in San Francisco Japan in fiction Japan in non-Japanese culture Funimation Films shot in Kōchi Prefecture Films set in Kōchi Prefecture 2000s English-language films American drama films 2000s American films