The Crying Wind (2004)

The Crying Wind 2004 / 風音 2004 / Fuon , ふうおん ,

Seikichi, 70, makes his living fishing from a small boat off the coast of Okinawa. He and his 12-year-old grandson Akira live in a small, tree-lined village in the northern part of the island which is surrounded by a white-sand beach and lots of pine and flowering bushes. On the cliff that skirts the shore sits an open-air burial ground containing the skull of a kamikaze pilot who was shot down during the last days of World War II. When the wind blows through the bullet hole in the skull, it produces a whistling sound which causes the locals to cringe and shudder. They call it the ‟Crying Head‟. It was Seikichi's father who brought the pilot's corpse during the fighting, an event that Seikichi still remembers well. One day in spring, Kazue, 30, returns to the village with her son Masashi, 10. She has fled her abusive husband and has returned to live with her aging mother. Akira befriends Masashi, introduces him to the other boys of the village and shows him how to fish with a bamboo pole. Soon afterward Shiho, 70, comes to the village from the mainland of Japan. Long ago, the man she loved died as a kamikaze pilot during the battle of Okinawa and she has returned periodically to find what happened to his body. This time she is in luck: she meets Seikichi and when she shows him the picture of her lover he realizes to whom the ‟Crying Head‟ belonged. But if Shiho's quest is finally resolved, Kazue's nightmare is far from over... (Source: Asianwiki)