'Oppenheimer' premieres in Japan: Here's how Hiroshima survivors, Japanese residents reacted

The Oscars' best picture winner "Oppenheimer" premiered in Japan on Friday, nearly nine months after its global release, amid concerns about how the country would receive the movie as a victim of atomic bombing.

Christopher Nolan's film focuses on physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), who led the race to develop the atomic bomb, although the effects on the people of Japan are not depicted. American atomic bombs devastated the western city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the south at the close of World War II, killing more than 200,000 people.

Images on social media showed signs posted at the entrances to some Tokyo theaters, warning that the movie featured images of nuclear tests that could evoke the damage caused by the bombs.

The film was received with mixed reviews from Japanese residents, as well as those in the U.S. who are still suffering from the effects of nuclear bomb testing in Nevada. While some believe the film is a needed cautionary tale about mass destruction, others have felt the film focuses overly on Oppenheimer rather than the victims.

Former Hiroshima mayor criticizes 'Oppenheimer,' some Japanese viewers leave theater in distress

Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, who attended an earlier media screening of "Oppenheimer," criticized the absence of humanity for Hiroshima residents. "From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted," he told Japanese reporters, according to The Associated Press.

He added: "The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans."

Hiroshima resident Kawai, who would only give his family name to Reuters, made similar criticism, telling the news agency, "The film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it, and, as a person with roots in Hiroshima, I found it difficult to watch."

"I'm not sure this is a movie that Japanese people should make a special effort to watch," Kawai concluded.

Yujin Yaguchi, a professor of American studies at the University of Tokyo, told The New York Times the film "celebrates a tiny group of white male scientists who really enjoyed their privilege and their love of political power" rather than giving a voice to victims in Japan and America.

"We should focus more on why such a rather one-sided story of white men continues to attract such attention and adulation in the U.S. and what it says about the current politics and the larger politics of memory in the U.S. (and elsewhere)," Yaguchi added.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, a co-chair of Hidankyo, an atomic bomb survivors group, was left disappointed after leaving the theater, he told The Guardian.

"I was waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to appear, but it never did. It’s important to show the full story, including the victims, if we are going to have a future without nuclear weapons," Mimaki said.

Japanese viewers leave 'Oppenheimer' feeling sympathy for the physicist

Speaking to Reuters before the movie opened, atomic bomb survivor Teruko Yahata said she was eager to see it, in hopes that it would re-invigorate the debate over nuclear weapons.

Yahata, now 86, said she felt some empathy for the physicist behind the bomb. That sentiment was echoed by Rishu Kanemoto, a 19-year-old student, who saw the film on Friday.

"Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the atomic bombs were dropped, are certainly the victims," Kanemoto said. "But I think even though the inventor (Oppenheimer) is one of the perpetrators, he's also the victim caught up in the war."

Masao Tomonaga, an atomic bomb survivor and honorary director of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb hospital, called the lack of survivors a "weakness" in The Guardian. However, "Oppenheimer’s lines in dozens of scenes showed his shock at the reality of the atomic bombing. That was enough for me."

Moviegoer and Nagasaki resident Koichi Takeshita similarly told NPR, "The last look of Oppenheimer in the film was that of pain. It was a look of either regret, because he was the person who made the A-bomb, or he didn't know what to do and was sad, as tens of thousands of people died."

Oppenheimer's nuclear fallout:How his atomic legacy destroyed my world

Shogo Tachiyama, a university student, told The Guardian the movie was good for educational purposes as the full story wasn't taught to him in Japan. "We learned about the bombing and its aftermath at primary school, but I knew nothing about Oppenheimer," he said.

Tachiyama added: "I learned a lot from the film, and it’s made me think again about what I and other young people can do … starting from the insistence that nuclear weapons should never be used again."

New Mexicans, downwind survivors still seeking reparations speak out amid 'Oppenheimer'

During the Cold War, the United States detonated 928 nuclear bombs in the Nevada desert, many of which were more powerful than those that decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Oppenheimer’s Trinity test sent a cloud of fallout over communities downwind of Los Alamos and into 46 states, according to a new study, catapulting the world into the nuclear age. The Atomic Energy Commission's decision to ignore, and then cover up, the danger has left a trail of suffering and death that continues.

Mary Dickson, an author and activist against nuclear weapons, wrote about the effects of Oppenheimer's testing in an op-ed for USA TODAY in August.

"As a child in Salt Lake City, my thyroid absorbed this radiation. Years later, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and suffered other health complications that left me unable to have children. For others, the poison went into the teeth, bones, liver, lungs, pancreas, breasts, soft tissue and reproductive organs. The damage caused can take decades to manifest as life-threatening illnesses," Dickson wrote.

Open letter:Jane Fonda, 'Oppenheimer' stars ask to 'make nukes history' ahead of Oscars

Mark Shapiro, producer and co-director of the 2023 documentary "Downwind," also called for more attention to New Mexico residents and others affected by the bombings.,

The film "exposes a tragic, largely forgotten and unforgivable chapter of U.S. history and the ongoing health consequences for Americans and global citizens, addressing the current state of the downwinders, the hopeful expansion of RECA (Radiation Exposure Compensation Act) and the continued tenacity of heroic activists who won't be stopped in their pursuit of government accountability and humanitarian justice," Shapiro wrote in a USA TODAY op-ed in March ahead of big wins for "Oppenheimer" at the Oscars.

Contributing: Mary Dickson and Mark Shapiro, USA TODAY; Irene Wang, Reuters