first love
music video, DV, 5 minutes
Directed by Stann Nakazono
Produced by Stann Nakazono

SYNOPSIS

1944. It's the height of World War II, where America is fighting on both sides of the coast, in the Pacific and in Europe. A young woman (Keiko Kashiwagi) is saying her last good-byes to her first love, a soldier (Chris Tashima), before being sent off to the front.

However, there is a little twist to the scenario: They're both Americans of Japanese descent, and this love scene is taking place behind barbed wire. Two years earlier, over 120,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry were uprooted from their homes and incarcerated in 10 concentration camps spread out in the most desolate parts of the United States. All because of "looking like the enemy."

To further prove their loyalty, many Japanese-American men ("Nisei", or second-generation, as they were called) volunteered to join the Army in what became the 100th   Battalion/442 Regimental Combat Team. Though they helped win the war on the European front and became the most decorated American military unit during World War II, they were also the most decimated, losing more than two-thirds of their regiment.    

The music video is a dedication to the grandparents and their children who suffered during those times.

CAST

CHRIS TASHIMA (Nisei Soldier) won an Academy Award in 1997 for producing, directing and starring in the live-action short Visas and Virtue, the true story of the Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara, who saved over thousands of Lithuanian Jews from the Holocaust during World War II. 

In 2004, he completed another acclaimed short film Day of Independence,  about the baseball league within the confines of barbed wire, set during the Japanese-Amercian internment of 120,000 during World War II.

His acting credits include the independent feature, Strawberry Fields directed by experimental video artist Rea Tajiri, Requiem, directed by Elizabeth Sung, and Lani Loa: The Heavenly Passage, from Francis Ford Coppola and Wayne Wang's Chrome Dragon Films. His television credits include Unsolved Mysteries and The Young and the Restless.

He is currently in pre-production for the sequel to "Day of Independence," Memorial Day, a short drama about World War II's most decorated American military unit, the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team.

KEIKO  KASHIWAGI (Nisei Woman) started as a ballet dancer before becoming a singer.  She released an album with Hong Kong film composer Nathan Wang, Banzai in 1993, featuring Al Jarreau.  She has done voiceover work in television, including the animated shows Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and Eek the Cat.   She has also appeared in TV specials in Japan. 

She has appeared in the short films Visas and Virtue and Day of Independence.

Full Credits >
More reading >