Script was familiar to former Marine

[thedrifter]

Script was familiar to former Marine


By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, December 14, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Ric Arthur returned to familiar territory last year during the filming of "The First Breath of Tengan Rei."

The 34-year-old Chicago actor was cast in the role of one of two Marines who abduct and rape an Okinawa schoolgirl, who journeys to the U.S. a decade later to confront the men who ruined her life.

It’s a story loosely based on the 1995 sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl abducted by two Marines and a Navy corpsman in the village of Kin, outside Camp Hansen.

And that’s where Arthur was from November 1995 to May 1996.

"I was an infantry rifleman with 3rd Regiment, 5th Marines out of Camp Pendleton," Arthur said in a telephone interview from his Chicago home. "We were deployed to Okinawa for six months of training."

His unit arrived in the midst of the uproar over the incident that had occurred on Labor Day.

"Prior to deployment everyone was talking about how great it’d be on Okinawa, that we’d be training really hard, but partying hard," Arthur said.

"But just before we left we had a battalion meeting concerning the rape incident and when we got there everything was locked down."

Arthur said he wasn’t sure what the part entailed until he read the script. "When I first got the script and started talking about it, I paused and said, ‘Hey, I know about this,’ " Arthur said.

He said it’s the bad 1 percent of Marines who commit crimes that give the whole Corps a bad reputation — a reputation that taints them when they go out in public.

Arthur said he appreciated how the directors decided to not approach the story as anti-military propaganda.

"Instead, like all good filmmakers they tried to tell a story, leaving it up to the audience to ask their own questions, come to their own conclusions," he said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Film inspired by rape of Okinawa girl by U.S. troops


By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, December 14, 2008

"Never let them forget."

That’s the tagline for "The First Breath of Tengan Rei," a new independent film that focuses on an Okinawa woman who travels to Chicago to confront two Marines who abducted, raped and left her for dead a decade ago.

And if the story line sounds familiar, it should. The directors loosely based some of the plot on a 1995 incident that gained international notoriety and drew thousands of anti-base protesters to the streets.

In that case, two Marines and a Navy corpsman from Camp Hansen abducted a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the main street in Kin and took her to a beach — her hands tied and her eyes and mouth duct-taped shut — where she was beaten and raped.

Two of the men were sentenced to seven years and the third to 6½ years of hard labor in a Japanese prison.

The girl’s family later moved from Kin, and she has not been heard from publicly since. "Tengan Rei" examines what could have happened 10 years later.

In the movie, the girl was 16 when she was abducted, and now — at 26 — she journeys to Chicago with an unclear intent, perhaps only to find out what happened to her assailants after they were released from prison and to make sure they know how the incident scarred her for life.

But her search leads her to kidnap the 16-year-old son of one of the Marines, and the tale turns to one of redemption and reconciliation.

"Tengan Rei" is the first feature-length film by writers and directors Ed M. Koziarski, a native of Chicago, and his wife, Junko Kajino, originally from Nagano, Japan. It had its premiere showing in November at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

Koziarski said the film, financed by backers in the United States and Japan and made for "under a million dollars," next will be screened at an international film festival in India and then at a return engagement in Chicago.

Arrangements also are being made for distribution in Japan and major U.S. cities, he said.

A DVD should be released early next year.

It was filmed on Okinawa and in Chicago in 2006 and 2007. The Okinawa scenes took place on the tiny Yagaji Island, the site of a former leper colony located north of Nago, Okinawa.

The film stars Okinawa-born actress Erika, who had to learn English almost from scratch to play the part of young Tengan Rei.

"We thought a part like this must be played by an Okinawan actress, and we found Erika, who has starred in some Japanese movies, TV and advertising," Kajino said in a telephone interview from their Chicago home. "She really prepared and was connected to the part. She played it with her body and her heart."

After a preview on Okinawa last summer, some anti-base activists said the movie should have made a stronger case against the U.S. military presence on the island. Kajino said that’s not what their project was about.

"A lot of people wanted us to express strong political issues, but as filmmakers we are more interested in telling compelling stories," she said. "We want to take the viewer on a personal journey, get them to ask their own questions."

Koziarski said they approached the political issue of the military occupation of more than 20 percent of the main island of Okinawa in a "deeply intimate and personal way, challenging audiences to find their own answers to the questions the film raises."

In preparation for the film, Kajino made several research trips to Okinawa to explore the distinct culture of the Okinawan people and get their perspectives on the base controversy and the social stigma attached to victims of sexual assault and rape.

"This was something in the back of my mind for a long time," she said. "Women who are attacked tend to be silent; they try not to talk about it. I wish the environment would change, that women would be more open and break the stigma."

One of the messages Kajino wanted to convey in the film was how such crimes affect both sides — the perpetrator and the victim.

She said that talking with Okinawans and American servicemembers "changed my way of looking at soldiers 180 degrees."

"They are isolated, too, and feel disconnected," she said. "Though the two cultures live side by side, there are still walls."

In the film, Rei tells the kidnapped boy the truth about the rape and his father’s long absence from home during his tour in Japan. The boy, Paris, had believed his father had served time in the brig for disrespecting an officer.

After the two Marines raped her, she was left for dead on the beach at the water’s edge and was swept to sea by the incoming tide. She struggled to the surface and took her first breath in her new life as a victim.

"I thought the ocean was cleaning me and taking away the stain they put in me," she tells Paris. "But the stain was still there. It never goes away."

The directing team had asked if the movie could be screened on base in Okinawa. It would be something the military might want to show newcomers to the island, Koziarski said.

Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, head of Marine Corps Public Affairs in Japan, nixed the idea after reading some reviews.

"It’s not a movie we would show," he said Wednesday. "It wouldn’t be appropriate."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Movie role is special for native Okinawan


By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, December 14, 2008



Erika, 29, is a native of Okinawa.



CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The movie "The First Breath of Tengan Rei" has a very special place in the heart of Japanese actress Erika, 29, who plays the leading role.

"The theme of the movie is very heavy, which I took into my heart," the Okinawa-born actress said during a phone interview Thursday from Tokyo.

She was in Tokyo when the 1995 incident on which the movie is based — the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by two Marines and a Navy corpsman — occurred. She never forgot it, she said.

When she was offered the role, she first thought of the girl and her family.

"I was told that the family reacted negatively when they learned of a plan to make a film based on the incident," she said, adding that she accepted the role with hope the film might help with the emotional recovery of victims of sexual crimes.

The role was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences in her 15-year career, she said.

Besides getting inside the character, the English-speaking role was an additional challenge.

"I had private English lessons six hours a day for two months," she said.

The challenge broadened her potential as an international actress, she said.

Erika was born and grew up on the small island of Tonaki and later moved to the city of Naha with her family.

"Okinawa is the place where I feel at peace," she said.

She comes home from time to time, and like her character in the movie, the island has a special place in her heart.

"It is a great sense of security to be surrounded by people I love," she said.

Ellie