Carl Sr. died and Etta sold the land to Ole. When Kabuo returned after the war, he was extremely bitter toward Etta for reneging on the land sale. When Ole suffered a stroke and decided to sell the farm, he was approached by Carl Jr., hours before Kabuo arrived, to try to buy the land back. During the trial, the land is presented as a family feud and the motivation behind Carl's murder. Ishmael's search of the maritime records reveals on the night that Carl Heine died a freighter had passed through the channel where Carl had been fishing at 1:42am, five minutes before his watch had stopped. Ishmael realizes that Carl was thrown overboard by the force of the freighter's wake. Despite the bitterness he feels at Hatsue's rejection, Ishmael comes forward with the new information. Further evidence is collected in support of the conclusion that Carl had climbed the boat's mast to cut down a lantern, been knocked from the mast by the freighter's wake, hit his head on his boat's gunwale, then fallen into the sea. The charges against Kabuo are dismissed. Hatsue thanks Ishmael by allowing him to hold her "one last time." Cast Production Filming took place primarily in locations around British Columbia, Canada and Washington state. Several scenes were filmed in Greenwood, where a lot of the older extras were Japanese-Canadians who were interned during World War II. Though portraying an island town, Greenwood is actually 275 miles from the coast, confusing tourists who read "Harbor" and "Ocean" signs placed there by the production. Scenes of Maine's Portland Head Light were filmed during the ice storm of 1998. The film includes a clip from the documentary Topaz, a home movie shot by Topaz War Relocation Center internee Dave Tatsuno. The film was the debut performance of Anne Suzuki, who plays the younger Hatsue. Critical reception Snow Falling on Cedars received an approval rating of 39% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 92 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 5.26/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though Snow Falling on Cedars is beautiful to look at, critics say the story becomes dull and tedious to sit through." Snow Falling on Cedars also received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three and a half out of four stars and wrote