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Planning and Support: Group to Film the Korean Red Hairstreak Planning: Kusakari Koichi Dirctor: Iizuka Toshio Photography: Hara Tadashi Narrator: Nakayama Chinatsu Location Sound: Asanuma Yukikazu Editing: Shibuya Nobuko Titles: Kunori Shigezo Producers: Aoyagi Noritoshi, Shinryo Katsuo,Naito Kazuya Production Company: Dentsu Prox Inc. 1992 / Color / 16mm / 50 min |
| First discovered in 1880 by the French researcher, Auventure, on the island of Askold, off Vladivostok, the range of the Korean red hairstreak butterfly is known to stretch from the Amur river across North Korea and into the Japanese prefectures of Iwate, Niigata, and Yamagata. Usually it lays its eggs on the torineko tree and thus is restricted to the areas where that tree grows. However, the type of Red Hairstreak that lives in Kawanishi City in Yamagata prefecture has been found to live in people's houses. Iizuka, using the "Ogawa Productions method," documented the mode of life of the Korean red hairstreak butterflies that he raised: from their emergence from willow leaves in March, through to the egg laying season in July. He focuses on portraying the butterfly in its natural surroundings: showing us the dangers posed to its habitat by the annual cleaning of the irrigation channels, and the measures taken by the villagers to protect the butterfly. He also traces the history of the irrigation channels back to the Edo period, thereby clarifying the process by which these butterflies came to live in people's houses. Iizuka has been connected to Ogawa Productions since before the Sanrizuka films, first as a producer and then, after moving to Magino, as an assistant director. Having made his directorial debut with the official documentary of the first Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, A Movie Capital (1991), this film is the first piece Iizuka has made after leaving Ogawa Productions. |