Customer Reviews

Barefoot Gen: The Movies 1 & 2

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I watched this movie in a class one day and it almost made me cry. A story about the bombing of Hiroshima, a boy escapes the effect of an etomic bomb by a stroke of luck! Watching his father, sister and brothe die in their burning house, he and his pregnant mother a forced to live on the streets. Things don't go to plan when his mother goes into labor with no docters around and is forced to give birth by themselves. Dying of poor health, he and his new friends are forced to get a job to buy milk but something goes horribly wrong. This movie is moving and touching and I highly reccomend it to those that don't mind a few graphics and violence. Five stars all the way!

Few animated films can be comfortablly labeled "important". Mamoru Shinzaki's "Barefoot Gen" is, without a doubt, one of these films. Based on Keiji Nakazawa's poignant graphic novel, the film tells the story of a family and how their lives are affected by the atomic bomb dropped on Hisroshima in 1945. Shinzaki perfectly adapts Nakazawa's somewhat akward style of drawing and adds dimension to these already strong characterizations. The animation is a bit on the stiff side. The style of animation looks a bit like what we stereotypically think of when picturing anime. While there are moments of great beauty and grace (mostly in the film's backgrounds), the animation is closer to Speed Racer than Princess Mononoke. The film elegantly re-tells Gen's tragic story of survival, streamlining the narative for the big screen. Missing from the film are several charming vignettes as well as two of Gen's brothers. Focusing mainly on Gen and his actions and responses, the film loses some of the comic's political vigor but retains a strong voice against war. Never is the film anti-American. It matter of factly cries out against the pointlessness of war. It is mainly through the horrors witnessed in uncompromising graphic detail (even more so in the comic) that this message is most vivid. And yet Barefoot Gen is ultimately a story of survival. Gen is a hero and his actions speak of the amazing potential of the human spirit when faced with the unspeakable. The only thing you will be longing for after the film's somber closing is more. Like "Grave of the Fireflies", "Barefoot Gen" is more than worthy of a spot in any collector's library.

While there are moments of spectacle (the bombing and the horrific aftermath), it's basicaly a "good feeling" movie set in Hiroshima.
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I don't know how this person could get a feel good idea from this anime but I think he should seriously go back and watch it again. This isn't a "feel good" anime by any stretch. It is however brilliant, a tribute to the man who's life story brought it forth. The first time I saw it back in 1986 in Japan I turned it off, it was that powerful.

It blames no side, it takes no stand for the weak policy of victimhood now running rampent in Japanese schools, it lays bare the horror of that era of warfare for all to see in the hopes we shall never visit that era again.

It is a true magnum Opus of Anime and I think everyone should watch it.

I'm a fan of anime, but this film transcends genres. My history teacher used the opening sequence - from Gen getting ready for and going to school to just after his family dies in the rubble - to illustrate Japanese anti-war sentiment. My classmates often laugh at me for my hobby and passion for anime. The room was silent when this excerpt ended.

I initially rented this title, and I must say that it didn't disappoint. It has enough complexity to keep you interested, yet it wouldn't confuse someone who can't get into "deep" things. While it is graphic, this is only because the film is being truthful to the material it is based on. A definite must-see for anyone who appreciates war-related movies/shows or just one great story.

A powerful and haunting movie showing animation can go where other artforms fear to tread.

even though this is not your typical action thrill ride, it is well worth checking out. it is a very influential film.

Barefoot Gen: 9/10

A line from Apocalypse Now kept creeping into my head whilst I watched this - "The horror, the horror..."

Barefoot Gen more than lived up to my expectations. I'd read before watching that it's very similar to Grave of the Fireflies, it being story about children trying to survive during World War 2, and they are indeed worthy of being spoken of in the same breath. There aren't many films, live-action or animated, that have the sort of impact these films do on viewers.

Barefoot Gen is a story told from the viewpoint of a child, the story being about the Hiroshima bombing. Instead of rushing into the bombing, time was spent showing the viewer Gen's (Gen is the main character) family and how they struggled to survive with little to no food. Gen spent a lot time with his younger brother during the early section, trying to find food for their pregnant mother and, basically, acting like kids do. This early pre-bombing section was good because it allowed viewers to become emotionally attached to the family and made them want the familty to survive.

And then, suddenly, the atomic bomb hits and, in graphic detail, you see people falling apart and getting burnt alive. Eye sockets fall out, skin melts...it wasn't easy to watch. Gen then rushed back to home to find his father, brother and sister all stuck under their house, which had collapsed due to the blast. After Gen and his mother couldn't lift what their family was stuck under, Gen had to pull his mother away from their family in order to save themselves due to the fire spreading, but Gen first made a teary-eyed promise with his father - his father made him make a non-verbal promise that he'd protect his mother and the child growing inside her.

It continued like that until the end. It was realistic to the point of being painful to watch. Animation or not, it was hard not to see what was happening as real. Barefoot Gen was based on the real life story of the author, so it'd be wrong to view as "just a silly cartoon" because of the lack of real actors, but it's rare for animation to have that sort of impact on me.

There were a few things I wasn't impressed with, such as the semi-annoying voice actor of Gen, how easily Gen's brother was allowed to be replaced by someone who looked like him and how well Gen and his mother handled losing their loved ones, but the good outweighed the bad. It was a wonderful film, and I highly recommend it to anyone with interest in the more realistic side of anime.


Barefoot Gen 2: 7.5/10

Barefoot Gen 2 continues the story 3 years after the end of the first film. Japan has started to return to normal but there are still problems like starvation and people being homeless. The bombing resulted in a lot of kids having their entire families killed and that obviously meant there were a lot of kids living on the street, unable to even get education because people need to pay to go to school in Japan. The story in this film focuses on a group of kids Gen befriends and shows how, even after the bombings had stopped, Japan was still far from repaired.

In all honesty, there didn't need to be a sequel made. The first film covered everything important and only the left the aftermath, which was never going to be as powerful as what came before, to be shown. The film had potential but a lot of the potentially interesting aspects, such as how people with burns from the atomic bomb were treated like monsters, were never looked into too deeply. Although I didn't feel the film was bad, I felt it wasn't made with the same amount of effort as the first and, quite simply, the story was weaker due to it not having to cover anything as horrific as what was shown in the first film.

A decent sequel, and a very nice DVD extra (both Barefoot films are on the same disc), but not worthy of a high rating.

Barefoot Gen is one of the finest ant-war films ever made. It tells its heartfelt story from the perspective of a young child who is caught amid the destruction of Hiroshima in 1945. The boy's heartfelt story is genuinely poignant and it meshes well, strangely enough, with some of the most relentlessly harrowing scenes of wartime devastation ever put forward to any medium. An excellent film.

This has got to be one of the saddest animes I've ever watched. Told by a young boy during the bombing of Hiroshima, it follows his life before and after the terrible tragedy. It really shows what the Japanese went through during the aftermath without focusing on hatred towards America. There are shockingly accurate accounts of how the people died and suffered physically and emotionally, leaving nothing to the imagination. Highly recommended - a must-see!