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The Land of Hope (希望の国)

The Land of Hope (希望の国, Kibō no kuni) is a 2012 Japanese drama directed and written by Sion Sono, depicting two neighboring farm families whose lives are upended when an earthquake triggers a nuclear accident in a fictional Japanese prefecture. It was released in Japan on October 20, 2012, runs 133 minutes, and was produced as a co-production of Japan, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.1 • 2

Key factDetail
Director and writerSion Sono (園子温), who also composed the music1
Japanese releaseOctober 20, 2012; 133 minutes; distributed by Bitters End1
ProductionJapan–United Kingdom–Taiwan co-production by the "The Land of Hope" Film Partners consortium2
SettingThe invented prefecture of Nagashima (長島県), years after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, in the era "20XX"1 • 3
Lead castIsao Natsuyagi (Yasuhiko Ono), Naoko Otani (Chieko Ono), Jun Murakami (Yoichi Ono), Megumi Kagurazaka (Izumi Ono)4
Festival honorsNETPAC Award (Best Asian Film) at the 37th Toronto International Film Festival, 20121
Critical scoresRotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 50% from 6 reviews; audience Popcornmeter 54%5

Spoilers

Story

The film is set several years after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, in the unspecified year 20XX. A dairy-farming family, the Onos, and a farming family, the Suzukis, live modest, contented lives in Nagashima Prefecture. A new great earthquake strikes off the coast, and the tsunami it generates swallows people and a nuclear power plant, causing a second nuclear accident.3

The evacuation order splits the two households: the Suzukis must leave their home, while the Ono farm lies outside the evacuation zone, so Yasuhiko Ono and his wife Chieko remain on land they have worked all their lives. As each family wrestles with anxiety, the pregnancy of Yoichi Ono's wife Izumi is discovered, sharpening the question of what life near the contaminated zone means for the next generation.3 • 4 According to its JustWatch synopsis, the film's core conflict is spelled out plainly: evacuation is required of the inhabitants, yet the farming family's land falls only partly within the zone marked for evacuation.6

Production and context

Sono's turn to social drama. Sono had built a reputation with shocking films based on real incidents, such as Cold Fish (冷たい熱帯魚) and Guilty of Romance (恋の罪), and The Land of Hope followed Himizu (ヒミズ) as his next work examining Japanese life after the Tōhoku disaster.3 • 1 The Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, has described it as the first feature film to fully engage with the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.7 A scholarly survey notes that it was the first fiction film to seriously depict a family buffeted by an earthquake and nuclear damage in a fictional prefecture after the disaster, and that Sono here avoided the "excessive" expression characteristic of his earlier work.8 Sono himself said publicly that the Japanese film industry was wrong not to depict the nuclear problem.9

The name of the fictional prefecture, Nagashima, is a portmanteau of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the plant in the film carries a name steeped in nuclear history.7 • 10 A disaster-film survey from the University of Tokyo's CIDIR lists the film among the works made after 2011 that take the Tōhoku disaster as subject or backdrop, a group in which few films achieved major commercial success.11

Crew and format. Sono wrote the script and composed the music; Shigenori Miki (御木茂則) was the cinematographer, Shin'ichi Matsukuma the lighting director, Takashi Matsuzuka the art director, and Jun'ichi Itō the editor. Producers were Yuji Sadai, Mizue Kunizane, and Yūko Shiomaki.1 • 2 The film was shot digitally and screened from a DCP with English subtitles.1

Cast

Isao Natsuyagi, known for The Summit of Mt. Tsurugi, plays the patriarch Yasuhiko Ono, with Naoko Otani (Gypsy Melodies) as his wife Chieko. Jun Murakami and Megumi Kagurazaka play the son Yoichi and his wife Izumi; Yutaka Shimizu and Hikari Kajiwara play the neighboring Suzuki son Mitsuru and his lover Yoko; Den Den and Mariko Tsutsui play the Suzuki parents. Several are regulars in Sono's films.4 • 2

Reception and festival run

The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film, and went on to screen at festivals including Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, Mar del Plata, Busan, Chicago, Thessaloniki, Stockholm, and Taipei Golden Horse.1 On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 50% Tomatometer from six critics and a 54% audience score; Anton Bitel of Film4 praised the performances, especially Isao Natsuyagi as the patriarch, while finding the film's message heavy-handed.5 Time Out gave it three of five stars, calling it at heart a straightforward melodrama with real power in its simple approach and note-perfect central performances.10 A Japanese academic comparison places it among the small number of fiction films that address a second, fictional nuclear accident in post-Fukushima Japan, alongside Takafumi Ota's House in the Sun (朝日のあたる家, 2013).12

References

  1. 希望の国, Japanese Film Database (JFDB)
  2. 希望の国, KINENOTE
  3. 〖作品データベース〗希望の国, Shochiku
  4. 希望の国：作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com
  5. The Land of Hope, Rotten Tomatoes
  6. The Land of Hope streaming, JustWatch
  7. 希望の国 (The Land of Hope), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
  8. 園子温『希望の国』が描き出すもの, Nara Women's University
  9. 『希望の国』の園子温監督「原発問題を描かない日本の映画界がおかしい」, MOVIE WALKER PRESS
  10. The Land of Hope 2012, directed by Shion Sono, Time Out
  11. 防災コラム：東日本大震災後の「災害映画」, CIDIR, University of Tokyo
  12. 総合文化研究 第22号, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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The Land of Hope (希望の国)

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