A movie director, journalists and even a rightist voiced opposition to movie theaters canceling the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove" after watching the movie with some 550 other people in Tokyo on Wednesday night.
Twenty-six movie theaters across Japan were planning this summer to show the movie about the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, but three of them — two in Tokyo and one in Osaka — have opted out.
The theaters received phone calls from rightwingers threatening to deploy noisy loudspeaker trucks outside their establishments unless they canceled the screenings, according to Takeshi Kato, president of the movie's distributor, Unplugged Inc.