Oppenheimer just screened in Japan

Last weekend, Japan finally got to watch Oppenheimer, the film winner of seven Oscars and directed by Christopher Nolan, which tells the story of the inventor of the atomic bomb that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Japanese cinemas were able to screen Oppenheimer only eight months after the film's release, as Universal Pictures, the studio responsible for distribution, initially decided not to include the country in the list of the global release in July. The release of Oppenheimer coincided with that of Barbie, Greta Gerwig's film about the famous blonde doll, a coincidence that gave rise to the phenomenon now known worldwide as Barbenheimer, which, however, due to its ironic tone, made the Japanese audience even more hostile to Nolan's film.

According to Universal's data, Oppenheimer qualifies as the highest-grossing World War II film of all time, while in Japan, for now, it ranks third at the box office. To adapt the film's marketing campaign to the Japanese audience, Universal collaborated with Tomonaga Masao, chairman of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Group "hibakusha". On the film's Japanese website, Masao's first impressions during the viewing of Oppenheimer have been published, including an observation on the responsibility that politicians have in preserving a world without nuclear weapons. The platform also cites former Hiroshima Mayor Hiraoka Takashi, who says, «The atmosphere of those days still pervades our world today» The twin bombs on August 6th and 7th, 1945, first on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki, ended World War II, leading Japan to surrender, but they killed at least 110,000 people and hundreds of thousands more due to the collateral effects caused by the radioactive waves. Even today, Japan remembers the tragic event with pain, which is why the memefication of the film about the inventor of the bomb has sparked mixed reactions among the country's audience. Last summer, before Universal Studios decided not to distribute the film in Japan, the hashtag #NoBarbenheimer spread on social media.