Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) on Netflix
PG-1319992h 7mDramaMysteryRomance
Off San Piedro Island in 1950, fisherman Carl Heine is found drowned in his nets. Kazuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American, is accused of killing him, and reporter Ishmael Chambers covers the trial.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.7/1015,022 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes39%
Trailer
Plot summary
On San Piedro Island in Washington's Puget Sound, in 1950, Carl Heine is found dead in the waters where he fished, and Kazuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American fisherman, is charged with his murder. The case is tried in a town where feelings against Japanese Americans still run high after the war. Ishmael Chambers, who runs the island's only newspaper and lost an arm in the Pacific, reports on the trial while carrying a long love for Hatsue, Kazuo's wife. The veteran attorney Nels Gudmundsson defends Kazuo, and the sheriff, Art Moran, and the prosecutor, Alvin Hooks, argue that a grudge over the Heine family's strawberry field, which Kazuo's father had arranged to buy before the war and the internment, lies behind the killing.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Several scenes were filmed in Greenwood, where a lot of the older extras were Japanese-Canadians who had been interned during World War II. Though it portrays an island town, Greenwood is 275 miles from the coast, confusing tourists who read the "Harbor" and "Ocean" signs the production put up.
- The film includes a clip from the documentary Topaz, a home movie shot inside the Topaz War Relocation Center by an internee there, Dave Tatsuno.
- Scenes of Maine's Portland Head Light happened to be filmed during the real ice storm of 1998, which struck the region while the production was there.
- The film was the debut performance of the actress Anne Suzuki, who plays the younger Hatsue in its flashback scenes.
