NHK & Eleven Arts Team for 8K WWII Drama

Japan’s NHK and Los Angeles-based Eleven Arts have co-produced Taiyo No Ko (Gift of Fire), an 8K drama set during Japan’s World War II atomic bomb program.

Marking NHK’s first internationally co-produced 8K drama, Taiyo No Ko tells the story of Japanese scientists and their loved ones amidst the turmoil of WWII. The story is based on facts that came to light when a wartime university researcher’s diary and other documents were discovered ten years ago.

The drama has aired on NHK’s 8K and 4K satellite channels and on the NHK General TV digital terrestrial channel. It is scheduled for a theatrical release in 2021. A two-hour documentary about wartime nuclear physicists at Kyoto University has already been broadcast.

Producer Tsuchiya Katsuhiro said: “We used cutting-edge 8K technologies to make a drama that tackles the role of science in war head-on. Unprecedented imagery of yellowcake (a material scraped together in the midst of a wartime shortage of resources), of the blueish-green light emitted when atoms break up, and of the colorless, burned-out wasteland of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing draw viewers into the world of the drama as though they have traveled through time. The drama is serious, but it shows that people have tried to live life to the fullest in even the hardest of times. I want viewers to encounter them in 8K.”

NHK’s 8K channel controller, Hakuno Takahiko, said: “NHK has always aired lots of war-related documentaries and dramas in August (the month of the atomic bombings). In this 75th anniversary year, I am delighted that NHK has had the opportunity to work with an American co-production partner on a project whose message is that humankind must never repeat the tragedy of the atomic bombings. Thanks to the stunning realism of 8K and world-class creative input, we created a drama that can reach young people along with people of other age groups. NHK plans to pursue more major drama coproductions that expand the possibilities of 8K.”