Entertainment Mar. 19, 2008 - 09:50AM JST ( 5 )

TOKYO —

A Tokyo cinema decided against showing a controversial documentary film by a Chinese director on the war-related Yasukuni Shrine, citing the potential “inconvenience” it may cause to other tenants in the same building, an official of movie theater operator T-Joy Co. said Tuesday.

“The film is talked about so much that it may create trouble and we don’t want to cause inconvenience to building tenants,” a T-Joy official was quoted as telling Argo Pictures, a distributor of “Yasukuni” by resident Chinese director Li Ying.

Wald9 Cinema in Shinjuku Ward, operated by T-Joy, was among four cinemas in Tokyo scheduled to premier the documentary on April 12, along with a few other cinemas in Osaka and Fukuoka.

The film tells the stories of people involved with Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo who have varied feelings about the war and the shrine, and focuses in particular on a swordsmith who manufactures “Yasukuni Swords.”

Some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers called for an unprecedented preview of the film, questioning if it was appropriate to grant a 7.5 million yen from state coffers to fund the production of the documentary that they said appeared to be anti-Japan. A preview was given March 12 by Argo Pictures on condition that it was open to all lawmakers.

Constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira of the University of Tokyo criticized the theater’s decision, saying a cinema that decides against showing the documentary “consequently is endorsing the idea of those people opposed to its release and is depriving the director of freedom of expression.”