The Oscar winner for best picture, “Oppenheimer,” was finally released in Japan on Friday. The film’s subject, the man who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb, is a very delicate and sentimental subject there.
The July release of the US blockbuster coincided with the release of “Barbie” in many other countries, leading to a viral phenomenon that moviegoers called “Barbenheimer.”
However, ‘Oppenheimer’ was noticeably absent from theaters for months, even though ‘Barbie’ was released in Japan in August.
At the time, there was no official explanation provided, which led to rumors that the film was too contentious to be screened in Japan, the only nation to have ever experienced a nuclear assault during a war.
Days before World War II came to a conclusion, in 1945, the United States unleashed atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing almost 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki.‘Oppenheimer’ was playing on Friday at a big-screen theater in central Tokyo, and the major promotional materials one might expect for a worldwide smash were conspicuously absent.Rather, the movie, which was shot on a $100 million budget and made close to $1 billion at box offices worldwide, was only promoted by one little poster.
