World War II · Film · 1989
Black Rain
黒い雨
A young woman caught in the radioactive rain after the Hiroshima bomb lives years later in a country village, where rumours about her exposure drive away every suitor.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 2 places.
Stop 1: Hiroshima
Key location
Returning by boat after the blast, Yasuko is soaked by black rain, then walks with her uncle and aunt through the burning, corpse-strewn city.
Stop 2: Village near Fukuyama
Five years on, the family's attempts to marry off Yasuko fail one by one, as friends from the city fall ill around them.
What really happened
Within an hour of the explosion over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, a sticky black rain carrying soot and radioactive fallout fell over the city and the hills to the northwest. Tens of thousands of survivors, the hibakusha, later suffered from radiation sickness, cancers and the fear of both, and many faced discrimination in marriage and work.
Shōhei Imamura's black-and-white film adapts Masuji Ibuse's 1965 novel, itself based on the diary of a real survivor, Shigematsu Shizuma. Only in 2021, after a court ruling, did Japan extend official survivor status to many people exposed to the black rain outside the area originally recognised.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- 黒い雨
- Directed by
- Shōhei Imamura
- Countries
- Japan
- Languages
- Japanese
- Released
- 1989
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- China & Southeast Asia
- Themes
- Home front
