Climber's High - Opens 26th March
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SYNOPSIS
On August 12, 1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123, which departed from Haneda and was enroute to Osaka crashed into the ridge of Mt Takamagahara, on Osutaka Ridge in Gunma Prefecture.
524 passengers turned to 4 survivors and 520 fatalities, making the accident the biggest single-plane accident in the world. The local press reporters are tossed about by the waves of facts and rumors.A roving reporter working for North Kanto newspaper name Kazumasa Yuki (starring Shinichi Tsutsumi) was preparing to climb Mt. Tanigawa with a colleague when the news of the crash got out.
In the ensuing excitement and chaos in the newsroom, Yuuki is given the go-ahead to cover the story and receives tremendous pressure to beat out competing news organizations to the first with the scoop.
While overwhelmed by the magnitude of the accident, Yuki now faces a string of decision-making moments. The movie vividly portrays Yuki’s struggles to cover the event under extreme pressures with confusion in the newsroom, stressed and angry reporters, and conflicts between the company's various departments.
[b]Not to be mistaken for a typical disaster flick, “Climber’s High” takes a more respectful approach, and much of the films centers around Yuuki’s difficulty balancing his duty as a reporter against the backdrop of such a staggering human tragedy and the subsequent conflicts with colleagues as he tries to deal with the event in the most journalistically responsible way possible. [/b]
Based on Hideo Yokoyama's best-selling novel, the film looks at the impact the country's worst airplane disaster had on a local newspaper as shock, excitement and chaos swirled around. What are news and a reporter? How should a man do his work and survive in a corporate hierarchy? What do family and friends mean to him? “Climber’s High” is an intriguing story that will keepsthe audience on the edge of tension and reality.
Official Website and Trailer
http://www.festivefilms.com/climbershigh/ -
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The title's misleading enough to signal thoughts of mountain climbing to figure in this film. Yes it does a bit, but probably came across stronger as an analogy running alongside the main crux of the story, that being set against the historical backdrop and event of Japan's, and the world's worst single-aircraft aviation disaster where more than 500 passengers perished from JAL flight 123 that crashed into a mountainside. Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2009/03/climbers-high-kuraimazu-hai.html