South Korean Film Impresses Japanese Emperor

Stories like this just go to show that not all things are bad between Korea and Japan:

Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko appeared to be emotionally affected at the screening on Friday of a new film about a South Korean student who was killed by an oncoming train in 2001 as he tried to rescue a drunken stranger at a Tokyo station.At a preview in Tokyo on the sixth anniversary of the death of 26-year-old Lee Su Hyon, the imperial couple both seemed to be moved as the film reached its finale where the main character is killed.

Lee’s parents also attended the screening.

“Anata wo Wasurenai” (We Will Not Forget You), the latest Japan-South Korean film collaboration which will premier across Japan on Saturday, depicts a young South Korean man and his love for a Japanese girl in Tokyo and is interlaced with the complex feelings South Koreans have about Japan, their former colonial occupier.

Empress Michiko has a personal involvement in the real story. In November 2001, she happened to meet with Lee’s parents at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo while they were on a tour.