Mini-making and background for the drama. The preview shows some of the harsh conditions that the cast and staff endured while filming for six months in Hokkaido.
Synopsis: In a national project to rebuild the country’s self-confidence, Japan’s first Antarctic winter party set off from Japan on an antacrtic exploration aboard the observation ship ‘Soya’ in 1956. Kuramochi Takeshi (Kimura Takuya), an assistant professor of geophysics at Tokyo University, was the second in command in the party and in charge of geological observation and the dog sled of 19 Sakhalin Huskies. Shouldering the dreams of their fellow countrymen, the party and their dogs braved temperatures of minus 50 degrees Celcius and blizzards with speeds of 100 metres per second in the place they were told to be inaccessible, and built the Showa base. While this took a toll on the dogs, they made it through the winter. However, the party was forced to leave 15 of the Sakhalin Huskies behind in Antarctica. A year later, Kuramochi returned to the South Pole and was reunited with the dog siblings ‘Taro’ and ‘Jiro’ that had miraculously survived the harsh climate.
Source: 1, 2
