Chi no mure ( Kei Kumai, 1970)

Dr. Unan is a middleaged doctor in Sasebo, Kyushu. Sasebo has a US naval base and the port isn t far from Nagasaki. Unan is asked to treat a young girl with Abomb disease symptoms, but her mother denies being in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing. Another young girl, Tokuko, asks Unan to write her a Proof of Rape. Tokuko is a burakumin (untouchables) and she is raped by a man from Kaito Shinan, a seaside village to which Abomb victims and their descendants are expelled. These two cases remind Unan of his wartime experience, including an episode with a KoreanJapanese girl. Based on the novel by Mitsuharu Inoue, the protagonist of Kazuo Hara s A Dedicated Life, Crowds of the Earth is Kei Kumai s first film after leaving Nikkatsu. Not just another tearjerker about discrimination in Japan, this film is a raw portrayal of the interdiscrimination among the discriminated.