"The Cove" Screens in Japan

[Bung]

This is a good documentary about the Japenese fishermen herding dolphins into a cove then selecting the best ones to sell to aquariums and slaughtering the rest.

I enjoyed it but couldn't help thinking the Japs could easily go to the West and do a similar film about eating cows/ sheep etc although the dolphins aren't exactly killed humanely.

One thing is that dolphins are high in mercury levels as they eat a lot of fish so the people who eat it are at risk of poisoning.

The guy that is leading it used to be the man behind flipper tv series.








BBC News
By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Tokyo
The Oscar winning documentary The Cove is to be shown in Japanese
cinemas for the first time.
The film is about dolphin hunting in Japan.
Earlier plans to screen it there were scrapped after cinemas were targeted by
demonstrators.
The screening will take place in Theatre Image Forum a tiny arts cinema in the
backstreets of Tokyo's Shibuya district
It does not look like the kind of place that usually gets what amounts to the
Japanese premier of an Oscar-winning film.
But the owners are not making much of the opening of The Cove this weekend -
there is just one small poster on the wall outside.
Much of The Cove was filmed covertly
Nationalist protestors have condemned the film as poisonous and a distortion of the
truth.
They say its makers have links to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the
environmental group which has been harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern
Ocean.
Cinemas cancelled earlier screenings to avoid the demonstrators' noisy pickets.
Polite demonstration
Last week one group was using the same tactics outside the office of a newspaper
which had argued the controversy over The Cove had become an issue of freedom
of speech.
It was all very polite. The protestors stood behind a barrier, and even bowed when
they handed over their petition.
Dolphin hunt film, the Cove,
screened in Japan
Page last updated at
10:17 GMT, Friday, 2 July 2010 11:17 UK
ADVERTISEMENT
BBC News - Dolphin hunt film, the Cove, screened in Japan http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_a...onment/1048754...
1 of 2 3/07/10 10:13 AM
But the noise from their loudspeakers mounted on a van echoed around the area.
The newspaper's managers, who gathered on their building's steps to hear the loud
complaints, plainly did not enjoy the confrontation.
The protest organiser Shuhei Nishimaru told the BBC that the film was "criticising
Japanese culture and looking down on the Japanese people".
"That's the issue," he said. "I don't think this should even be called a documentary
film."
The Cove is about the bloody, but legal, dolphin hunts by fishermen from the town
of Taiji on Japan's coast.
Partly filmed with hidden cameras it shows them using boats to drive the animals
into a small bay, which is then closed off with nets to prevent them escaping.
I think this film is something that should be watched by all Japanese
Takeshi Kato Film distributer
The best specimens are separated off to be sold to aquariums before the rest are
slaughtered for their meat.
The fishermen are portrayed as rough goons trying to hide their activities from
outsiders.
In the version of the film being shown in Japan their faces have been pixellated
after they complained their privacy had been violated.
The Cove's Japanese distributor, Unplugged, was also targeted by demonstrators,
until the company got a court order to block them from from gathering outside their
offices.
The courts have now done the same for two of the six cinemas which will be
screening The Cove from this weekend, with more expected to follow.
Takeshi Kato of Unplugged said: "My motto is to show any film that I feel that
people need to see.
"I think this film is something that should be watched by all Japanese, even the
people who protest against it should see it."

[Poo and Pee]

It's good that this film is being shown in japan. The Japanese are quick to jump on the nationalistic bandwagon and this film should bring some of the realities home.
The Japanese I have spoken to about dolphin consumption all deny that it even happens, and are quick to point out that only whales are consumed, and it is their cultural right to do so.

As was pointed out in the OP, the high mercury levels make it dangerous for human consumption , and this makes japans stance on the issue even more baffling.
Besides that, it tastes so bad that it is usually served in curries or a pasta sauce to disguise the strong smell the meat has - hardly 'traditional Japanese food' is it...

[Bung]

They also busted them for selling dolphin meat as whale meat.

[kingwilly]

They say its makers have links to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the
environmental group which has been harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern
Ocean.

Interesting, and points a different slant on the film.

The Cove is about the bloody, but legal, dolphin hunts by fishermen from the town
of Taiji on Japan's coast.

So what was the point ? disingenuous at best.

[billy the kid]

horrific . japs, still the enemy.