\n\tShinya\u2019s Tsukamoto\u2019s \u201cMr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?\u201d is headed to Japanese cinemas.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film rounds out the Japanese director\u2019s informal trilogy of 20th-century war films, coming after \u201cFires on the Plain\u201d \u2013 which landed in the main competition at the 71st Venice International Film Festival \u2013 and \u201cShadow of Fire.\u201d The project gestated for seven years before reaching the screen.<\/p>\n
\n\tRodney Hicks<\/a> takes the title role. The actor is known for his involvement with Broadway\u2019s \u201cRent\u201d from its opening to its closing night run, and for his turn as Uncle Charlie in the Netflix series \u201cForever.\u201d Triple award-winner Geoffrey Rush<\/a> \u2013 who has taken home Oscar, Emmy and Tony honors over his career \u2013 plays VA physician Dr. Daniels, a role that follows celebrated credits including \u201cShine,\u201d \u201cThe King\u2019s Speech\u201d and the \u201cPirates of the Caribbean\u201d series. Tatyana Ali, familiar to audiences from \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air\u201d and the Emmy-winning \u201cAbbott Elementary,\u201d plays Nelson\u2019s wife Linda. The film also marks the screen debut of Mark Merphy, who portrays Nelson as a young man in flashback. Filming took place across the U.S., Thailand, Vietnam and Japan.<\/p>\n \n\tThe film is rooted in the real-life account of Allen Nelson, an African American veteran of the Vietnam War who, after returning from combat, went on to give more than 1,200 lectures throughout Japan bearing witness to his wartime experiences. Nelson, who is buried in Japan, spoke candidly about his inner torment as someone who had taken lives during the conflict \u2014 the psychological terrain that Tsukamoto has described as \u201cthe wounds of those who perpetrated war.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe film traces Nelson\u2019s journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in New York through his decision to enlist in the Marines at 18, seeing in military service a path out of discrimination and hardship. After a stint at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, he was dispatched to the Vietnam front lines in 1966. He came home five years later plagued by sleeplessness, hair-trigger fear responses and fractured family ties that ultimately left him living on the streets. Dr. Daniels eventually intervenes in an effort to pull him back from the edge.<\/p>\n \n\tTsukamoto has said he first came across the original nonfiction book while immersed in research for \u201cFires on the Plain,\u201d and that it never left him. He described the filmmaking process as a seven-year tug of war between wanting to tell the story and being overwhelmed by its darkness. \u201cIn today\u2019s world, where conflicts are raging in various places, I\u2019ve come to feel this reality more acutely than ever,\u201d Tsukamoto said.<\/p>\n \n\tThe film is produced and distributed in Japan by Kinoshita Group and Kino Films, the company behind the local release of \u201cConclave\u201d and the upcoming Japanese rollout of the Michael Jackson biopic \u201cMichael\u201d in June.<\/p>\n \n\tTsukamoto\u2019s body of work stretches back decades, taking in the internationally celebrated body-horror film \u201cTetsuo: The Iron Man\u201d (1989) and the samurai drama \u201cKilling\u201d (2018), which also competed in Venice\u2019s main section. The Japan release announcement was timed to coincide with National Vietnam War Veterans Day on March 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shinya\u2019s Tsukamoto\u2019s \u201cMr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?\u201d is headed to Japanese cinemas. The film rounds out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,78173,61,60,270,166388,166389,166390],"class_list":{"0":"post-370733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-geoffrey-rush","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-mr-nelson-did-you-kill-people","14":"tag-rodney-hicks","15":"tag-shinya-tsukamoto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}