nationality was that he wanted to make his son's life easier. Six months later, on Christmas Eve, Sugihara is studying hard in preparation for the college entrance examinations. He is trying to fulfill the wishes of the deceased Jong-Il, who always wanted him to go to a (presumably Japanese) university. Sakurai calls him after a long period of silence between them and asks him to come to the place where they had their first date. In this last scene, they recover mutual affection and leave for some unknown place together in a light snowfall. Cast Yōsuke Kubozuka as Sugihara (杉原) Ko Shibasaki as Sakurai Tsubaki (桜井椿) Shinobu Ōtake as Michiko (道子; mother of Sugihara) Tsutomu Yamazaki as Hideyoshi (秀吉; father of Sugihara) Hirofumi Arai as Won-su (원수/ウォンス) Mitsu Murata as Katō (加藤) Takato Hosoyamada as Jeong-il (정일/チョンイル) Min Kim as Naomi (나오미/ナオミ) Gye-nam Myeong as Staff member of South Korean embassy Tarō Yamamoto as Tawake (タワケ) Ren Osugi as Taxi driver Sansei Shiomi as Mr. Kim (김 씨/キムさん) Masato Hagiwara as Policeman Anri Ban as Kaori (카오리/香織) Asami Mizukawa as Korean in the tube station Production The film is based on a novel by Kazuki Kaneshiro, a Zainichi Korean himself, also entitled Go. It was published in 2000 by Kodansha, and received a Naoki Prize. Reception The film received a simultaneous theatrical release in Japan and South Korea, and was the first joint Japanese and South Korean production. It was also the first major film to challenge existing preconceptions about Japanese identity within the commercial format of a young adult romance film. The film explores not just the issue of prejudice, reflected in Sakurai's unconscious racism, but that of racial identity in general. The film has received some criticism for its focus on racism that its protagonist experiences, in comparison to the deeply ingrained and institutionalized racism, ensuring that even after several generations of residence, many Koreans are still refused Japanese passports. Other Japanese films have also tackled the issue of prejudice in Japan, usually treating Koreans as the victims, such as Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging and Kohei Oguri's For Kayoko. All Under the Moon is another film with a Zainichi Korean director, and treats the Zainichi Korean ethnicity as a condition. In playing the role of Sugihara, actor Yōsuke Kubozuka comments on his experience, “In GO, Korean Japanese Sugihara’s identity was born because of the system of the