Abstract

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2020 Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 203–204 Multimedia Review DAVID W. PLATH (director, producer, editor), COLLEEN COOK (director of photography), WILLIAM EACH (editor) USA, An MPG Production, Duration 60 mins, DVD, 2016 ‘For if the Living Let Go of the Dead, their Own Life Ceases to Matter’ While visiting a dam in Northern Japan, Tonohira Yoshihiko came across a cache of over 80 memorial tablets, each of which was marked with the dates of people’s deaths during World War II. What were the stories of these people? Looking for answers, Yoshihiko began a journey to uncover more than one hundred unmarked graves of Korean people who had been taken from their homes and forced to work under imperialist Japan. Alongside anthropologist Chung Byung-Ho, Yoshihiko promised to return to Japan with a group of anthropologists to explore how the Korean people had died, to excavate their remains, and bring the remains back home to Korea. This dual national anthropology project would later uncover a long history of pain and suffering, straining non-confrontational Korean diplomats and unapolo- getic Japanese government agencies. The research reopened wounds that were still fresh from an unforgotten past. The documentary