BLACK RAIN

Reviving a Haunting Story of Survival

Venue(s): Cinema Jack & Betty
August 2 (Sat) – August 22 (Fri), 2025 Daily at 12:00 PM
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Theater website: www.jackandbetty.net
Theater website: www.jackandbetty.net/access.html
Trailer: https://bit.ly/4lOMKMk
Tariff: ¥1,500 general admission
Advance tickets: Available at Cinema Jack & Betty box office and website
Talk event: Background story exhibits, audio-guided screenings, and local Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) organization outreach included (Contact organizer for special events: 070-6460-0945)

Title: 黒い雨 (Kuroi Ame)
Director: Shohei Imamura (今村昌平)
Duration: 123 min

This summer marks 80 years since the end of World War II, and fittingly, Shohei Imamura’s haunting 1989 classic Black Rain returns to the big screen for a limited English-subtitled run at Cinema Jack & Betty in Yokohama. Based on the celebrated novel by Masuji Ibuse, the film offers one of the most restrained yet devastating portraits of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima ever put to film.

Shot in luminous black-and-white, Black Rain follows the lives of three survivors: Shigematsu and his wife Shigeko, and their young niece Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka), who was exposed to the radioactive fallout (“black rain”) as she re-entered the city on the day of the bombing. Though seemingly unharmed at first, Yasuko begins to suffer the invisible consequences of the exposure. As her prospects for marriage dwindle and her symptoms worsen, the psychological toll of surviving becomes clearer.

Set 5 years after the bombing, the film shifts from chaos to quiet despair. Even in peaceful postwar countryside settings, radiation lingers—physically, socially, spiritually. As friends die suddenly and Yasuko’s health declines, the bomb’s impact becomes devastatingly clear.

Black Rain was widely acclaimed, winning nine Japanese Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Yoshiko Tanaka, and a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Imamura’s restrained direction avoids sensationalism to focus instead on dignity and the fading hopes of a generation.

In an era when the word “hibakusha” (atomic bomb survivor) is increasingly unfamiliar to younger audiences, Black Rain offers a cinematic meditation on memory and humanity that remains essential. Whether you're revisiting or discovering it for the first time, these screenings are a rare opportunity to witness a foundational work in postwar Japanese cinema.

Jack & Betty Cinemas