The film project is funded in part by the State of Hawaii.
Go For Broke, a 442 Origins Story has released its trailer.
The Hawaii-based non-commercial education film tells centres around the 100th / 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service in WWII.
Documenting the year following the attack on Pearl Harbour, the film shows a group of students from the University of Hawaii ROTC fighting through discrimination and wartime Hawaii. The group form the Varsity Victory Volunteers (VVV) and eventually formed the all-Japanese fighting unit – the 442nd – the most decorated combat unit in American military history.
The film is directed by Alexander Bocchieri and stars Ban Daisuke (Jinzo Ningen Kikaida), Peter Shinkoda (Daredevil), Cole Horibe (So You Think You Can Dance), and Tashima (Under the Blood Red Sun).
“People know some of the history of the 442nd on the battlefield, but what led up to its formation is not known,” actor Chris Tashima who portrays Shigeo Yoshida, a Japanese-American leader in Hawaii, told NBC News.
“It didn’t just happen by itself, and there were many fights that had to be won, on the local level [in Hawai‘i], in order for government and military leaders to be persuaded to ‘trust’ the Nisei. This is important history, not yet told.”
“It’s my hope that [this film] will create a dialog that helps to heal old wounds in survivors, and that later generations such as my own, as well as Americans of other ethnicities, will stop and think about what being American really means,” Stacey Hayashi, the film’s writer and executive producer, told NBC News.
“I hope we can all better appreciate that our strength lies in our diversity, and in unity of our beliefs in freedom and equality for all. Fear and racism aren’t good for anyone or any country, but they really have no place in America, a nation of immigrants.”