Message from cvarela

[Anonymous]

I took Susan’s advice and several of us watched Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. The movie starts in Tokyo and moves to China. The premise of the film is that Mr. Takata’s estranged son (Kenichi) is dying, Kenichi refuses to see his father, as way of atoning for his sins against his son, he decides to travel to China to finish what he thinks is an important film project to his son. The project entails video taping the mask opera – Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. Mr. Takata arrives in China only to find out that the actor the son intended to tape is in jail. After a visit to the jail Mr. Taka finds out that the actor has an illegitimate child he has been ignoring. In order to get the actor to perform Mr. Takata attempts to reunite this father and son. In the process there is some soul searching for Mr. Takata. The reunion does not occur but the opera is taped. However, it is too late for Kenichi who dies while Mr. Takata is in China. (Oops I blew the ending…) The central message seems to be that while it is too late for Mr. Takata and his son Kenichi it is not too late for the actor and his son.

As far as using this film in my class room it will be hard. I teach will be teaching women’s studies and the emphasis in this film is on men, in Advanced Placement U.S. history there is no room or time to deviate from the pacing schedule, and even in U.S. History I am hard pressed to find a way to fit this film into our curriculum since there is no interaction with the U.S.. This film may be better suited for a World History or World Geography class.