The Japan Times reports that the film version of Yukio Mishima’s famous short story “Patriotism,” thought to have been destroyed by his wife following his suicide, has now been found.

Mishima’s widow, Yoko, who died in 1995, was believed to have destroyed the original along with all copies of the film.

But the negative was found in a wooden box by Hiroaki Fujii, producer of the 30-minute black-and-white film, according to publisher Shinchosha Co.

Fujii had persuaded Yoko, who pulled all copies of the film from theaters and burned them after Mishima’s suicide in 1970, to hold onto the original.

The film includes scenes that foreshadow Mishima’s suicide in 1970 at the Ground Self-Defense Force’s regional headquarters in Tokyo’s Ichigaya District.

A character in the film, a lieutenant involved in the Feb. 26 Incident, a failed 1936 military coup, commits hara-kiri.

Mishima also committed hara-kiri at the GSDF regional headquarters after calling on officers to launch a coup d’etat.

I managed to find a digital copy of the story from a dead website with the help of google cache, and I’ve mirrored it here.

Patriotism, by Yukio Mishima

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 20th, 2005 at 11:06 am and is filed under Fandom, History, Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.