Gen is a Japanese pacifist, who teaches his children to treat Koreans as human beings, and not to take the fanaticism of the militarists to heart. When he is imprisoned, his children suffer at the hands of students and teachers, and the oldest boy resolves to enter the military to help erase some of the social opprobrium surrounding his family. At about this time, the Atomic bomb falls near their Hiroshima home, and the boy's pregnant mother wanders around in a daze until he leads her away. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi