‘Oppenheimer’ Draws Praise in Japan After Long-Delayed Release

TOKYO—A movie about the atomic bomb’s creator was always going to be a touchy topic in the only country attacked with the weapon.

But after an eight-month delay reflecting those sensitivities, “Oppenheimer” opened in Japan on Friday to generally favorable reaction from Japanese viewers. Some said it offered a perspective beyond the widely held view in the U.S. that the bombings were justified because they hastened the end of World War II.

Film critic Takeo Matsuzaki said Christopher Nolan’s movie differed from earlier Hollywood portrayals of the bomb by showing how physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer opposed the U.S. hydrogen-bomb program after the war and found his position jeopardized during a “red scare” in the 1950s.

“It depicts how Oppenheimer himself was deeply troubled at that time,” Matsuzaki said. “By winning the Academy Award, it could result in changes in how future Hollywood films deal with the issue.”

While some in Japan said they wished the movie had shown the aftermath of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, viewers said they were impressed by the depiction of the bomb’s destructive power.

“I knew the horrors of atomic bombs only through pictures and numbers like how many tens of thousands died, but the film made me realize how scary it was with the power of the images and the sounds that made my body shake,” said Kana Yoshigiwa, 29.

“Dr. Oppenheimer wore an expression that he was terribly surprised at the shock wave of the explosion, and I understood how he felt very well,” she said.

Mainstream views of the atomic bombings have long differed in the U.S. and Japan. Many Americans believe the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of lives, if not more, by persuading Japan to surrender quickly on Aug. 15, 1945, and eliminating the need for a U.S. invasion of the main Japanese islands.

In Japan, the consensus view generally holds that whatever Japan’s own war crimes were, they didn’t justify using a weapon that killed tens of thousands of civilians. At the same time, many Japanese hold their own leaders responsible for the war rather than harboring enmity toward the Americans who created and dropped the bombs.

Leaders of the two countries, now close allies bound by a security treaty, have often avoided the topic. Barack Obama, the first president to visit Hiroshima, didn’t say clearly in his 2016 speech in the city whether he thought using the bombs was the right decision.

The U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, followed by one on Nagasaki three days later, devastating the two cities and killing more than 100,000 people, according to historians.

“Oppenheimer” won seven Academy Awards including best picture for its portrayal of Oppenheimer, the physicist who developed the bomb.

Although “Oppenheimer” was an instant success in the U.S. among critics and at the box office after its July 2023 release, it took months to find a Japanese distributor—unusual for a Hollywood blockbuster.

In December, a modest-size Japanese distributor called Bitters End that ordinarily handles art films said it would release “Oppenheimer” in Japan, citing the importance of the subject.

“Foreign films that possibly contain a negative portrayal of Japan sometimes take longer to get released here,” said Matsuzaki, the film critic, who has long followed the industry. He cited “Fat Man and Little Boy,” a 1989 film starring Paul Newman as the general who directed the atomic-bomb project. It never made it to Japanese cinemas, according to Matsuzaki and a Japanese film database.

Major Japanese distributors also balked at “Unbroken,” Angelina Jolie’s 2014 film about an American prisoner of war tortured by Japanese soldiers. Bitters End eventually brought it to Japanese cinemas in 2016.

A further complication, said Matsuzaki, was the “Barbenheimer” meme linking “Oppenheimer” with lighthearted “Barbie,” the other U.S. box-office juggernaut last summer. Some Japanese found the meme offensive and Warner Bros., the studio that released “Barbie,” apologized after using it in a social-media post.

Bitters End disclosed the date of the Japanese release only after “Oppenheimer” received 13 Oscar nominations in January. Ultimately the film was booked in theaters nationwide. Bitters End declined to comment beyond its December statement.

Takashi Hiraoka, a 96-year-old former mayor of Hiroshima who lost a cousin in the bombing, said he thought “Oppenheimer” was a good movie. He said, however, that he wished it had depicted the effects of the bomb on victims, many of whom survived the initial blast only to suffer painful deaths afterward from radiation poisoning.

“If more emphasis were given to this point, the real horrors and inhumanity of nuclear weapons would have stood out more sharply,” he said. “First and foremost, I want the film to spread the recognition that nuclear weapons are inhumane.”

Ryota Kinoshita, a 19-year-old student, said he wished more critical perspectives on what Oppenheimer did to Japan were included. The movie, he said, “was from the U.S. viewpoint all the way through.”

Kazuo Kona, 74, a jewelry maker, went to the first showing of “Oppenheimer” Friday at a Tokyo theater that was nearly full despite rainy weather.

She said she understood that people have various views of the war and found the film’s portrait of Oppenheimer compelling. “It’s not a depiction of how good America is,” she said. “It’s pretty balanced in every way.”

Write to Chieko Tsuneoka at [email protected]