Korean Schools in Japan

In 1948, after the Japan’s defeat, the General Headquarters and Japanese government ordered that the Chosen gakko, schools for Koreans in Japan,ō be shut down. Koreans in Osaka strongly resisted, and 16-year-old Kim Taeil was even shot and killed by the police. This was the Hanshin Education Incident. 70 years have passed, but the Japanese oppression continues. They've removed the Chosen gakkoō from being eligible for free education. Gaining strength from the growing hatred from the conservatives, the Abe administration is misusing the educational issue as a means to cause political strife. In the midst of ongoing conflicts in Japan, nonfiction writer KO Chanyu has directed Korean Schools in Japan, compiling a history of the Koreans' fight for education.

2018-11-27 | ja

One for All, All for One

Osaka Korean High School has provided education for the past six decades to the children of pro-North Korean residents in Japan. This school is located only about 20 minutes away from Hanazono Stadium, the mecca of Japan’s high school rugby, but it was not until 1994, 18 years after the foundation of a rugby team at the high school, that the Japanese education ministry approved the team’s entry into the official league. Since then, the team has run in the national league as a representative of the Osaka area and been considered a front-runner ever since. The team has strong players and passionate supporters, but it faces difficulties just before winning the league.

2014-09-18 | ko

After Chosun

Imman Kim wants to reconcile with his parents, who emigrated to Osaka after April 3 Jeju Uprising. Cheolwoong Park has supported his younger sister during his entire life, blaming his father who moved to Tokyo to avoid guilt-by association. Soonam Park has devoted her life to human rights movement for a second-generation Korean-Japanese and her daughter Mayi Park who also lives as a Korean-Japanese. This film tell us about meaning of a nation through their life stories.

2017-09-23 | ko

The Family of One Hundred Years

In Kawasaki, Japan, 1st to 3rd generation of Korean-Japanese and Americans share their daily lives and wish for a symbiotic society. The inter-Korean summit in 2000 brought reconciliation and hope to the divided Korean community. Meanwhile, hundreds of hateful demonstrators are approaching Sakuramoto, the Korean residence, amid deepening tensions between Japan and Korea in 2016.

2021-04-30 | ko

Dear Pyongyang

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

2006-01-23 | ja

Discrimination

Since 2013, Japan has implemented the free high school policy. However, only 10 Chongryon Korean high schools are excluded from this policy. The reason is that there are suspicions that the grant for free education will be misused by Chochongryon and others. Five of these schools protested about this measure and filed a claim for damages against the government in 2013. After four years of hearings, the first trial decision was made on July 19, 2017, starting with the case of Hiroshima Chongryon Korean high school.

2023-03-22 | ko

Soup and Ideology

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang, carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

2022-06-11 | ko

Our School

This documentary is about the 3rd and 4th generation Korean residents of Japan who are students of Chosen elementary, middle, and high school in Hokkaido. It follows the students through one year of the eventual 11 years` national education. Rather than focusing on special occasions or issues, it reveals what it is like to live in Japan as Korean-Japanese by describing their everyday lives.

2007-03-29 | ko

Arirang Rhapsody

The protagonists of the film are the Zainichi Korean women living in Kawasaki. They were tossed about by the war, and after many trips to and fro across the sea in search of a place to live, they finally arrived in Kawasaki, where they have lived modestly and vigorously.

2024-02-17 | ja

Strangers on the Field

In April 2013, unfamiliar faces appear at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium during the opening matches between Doosan and SK. The nervous middle-aged men throwing and batting the first ball are, in fact, Korean-Japanese former team members that played on that same spot in the 1982 finals of the Bong-hwang-dae-ki games.

2015-03-19 | ko

The Hanbok on the Court

2020-09-20 | ko

I Am From Chosun

After 15 years of knowing Chosun people in Japan I met on Mt. Geumgang in 2002, I face the history of colonization and division that I had not known before. They’ve been to North Korea many times, but never to South Korea. They tell us why they want to live as Chosun people despite the discrimination in Japanese society. 

2021-12-09 | ko

Horoomon

Horoomon: the Japanese word for grilled offal, derived from "something to be thrown away." There were people who picked up discarded animal intestines and ate them—Koreans who moved to Japan during the Japanese colonial era. The Japanese looked down on them for grilling and eating offal, but today, it has become a beloved dish for all. For Zainichi Koreans who have lived in Japan, horomon carries the sorrows and history of their lives.

2025-05-01 | ko

Shiso

A Japanese herb called 'shiso' looks like a perilla leaf but has a unique fragrance. It's like how I have a Korean name and nationality but still feel a sense of alienation in Korean society. The death of my grandmother, a first-generation Zainichi, raises a question for me: Does death also mark the end of the life of an outsider? In the end, where do we return to?

2025-05-02 | ko

Blood and Bones

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.

2004-11-06 | ja

GO

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

2001-10-20 | ja

Fighter in the Wind

An account of karate competitor Choi Yeung-Eui who went to Japan after World War II to become a fighter pilot but found a very different path instead. He changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama and went across the country, defeating martial artists one after another. This film concentrates on the period when he is still young, and developing his famous karate style, Kyokushin.

2004-08-12 | ko

Chong

A spirited and brave fiction debut by Lee Sang-il, a Korean-Japanese filmmaker, that explores the taboo subject of the relations between Korean immigrants and Japanese in Japan.

2000-07-01 | ja

Worst by Chance

Hidenori is a Japanese-Korean man with no sense of belonging, destination or education. He drifts around and meanders through life until a death reminds him of his heritage and so begins a journey to South Korea.

2003-09-13 | ja

Yakiniku Dragon

Set in the 1970's in the Kansai region of Japan.. Yong-Gil is Korean, but he moved to Japan and settled down. He runs a small restaurant named Yakiniku Dragon. He is married and has three daughters: oldest daughter Jung-Hwa, middle daughter Yi-Hwa and youngest daughter Mi-Hwa. Oldest daughter Jung-Hwa is dating Tetsuo, but they break up. Middle daughter Yi-Hwa loves Tetsuo and marries him, but Tetsuo still loves her older sister and they divorce. Youngest daughter Mi-Hwa wants to become a singer, but she is in love with a married man.

2018-06-22 | ja