Old Man River

Allan Holzman's sensitive and intelligent adaptation of Cynthia Gates Fujikawa's one-woman stage show is a truly memorable experience, focusing on Fujikawa's father, Japanese-American character actor Jerry Fujikawa. While the elder Fujikawa was a familiar face from his extensive work on television and in films, his private side (especially during his youth) remained a mystery until after his death. Piecing together her father's life during the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, Cynthia also discovered a sister she never knew existed, ultimately leading her to the shattering conclusion that she never truly knew her father--a supreme irony, given the fact that so many others knew him through his successful acting career. Both a testament to a family's skein of long-buried secrets and America's unapologetic racist attitudes towards its Asian population base (not only in the treatment of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s, but in the many stereotypical roles Fujikawa was forced to accept in his career), Old Man River debuts on DVD with the short film "Day of Remembrance," which compares the World War II-era treatment of Japanese-Americans with the wide civil rights abuses of America's Muslim population in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks (the message that America seems never to learn from its past racist mistakes is deeply disturbing). Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)