The play explores the relationship between the people of Taiwan and Japanese colonizers, highlighting the tension, cooperation and shared love of baseball. Published on By A heartwarming film turned into a musical, was performed for the first time in Kagi (Chiayi) City, , this October. It commemorated the 100th anniversary of baseball exchanges.
More specifically, it celebrated of the inauguration into the Taiwan Baseball Hall of Fame of a coach who led his multi-ethnic team to the tournament in 1931. Readers may have heard of the movie, (嘉農), a 2014 Taiwanese-Japanese historical sports film directed by Umin Boya. Set in the 1930s when Taiwan was under Japanese , it tells the remarkable true story of the Kagi Agriculture and Forestry Public School baseball team.
Commonly known as Kano, it was a multi-ethnic team that rose from obscurity to national fame in Japan's prestigious Koshien baseball tournament in 1931. The film revolves around a team of Japanese, Han Chinese, and indigenous Taiwanese players from different cultural and social backgrounds. Kano was initially a little-known agricultural school with a struggling baseball team.
However, its fortunes changed when a new coach, Hyotaro Kondo (played by Masatoshi Nagase in the film), took over. Kondo is a Japanese educator and baseball coach with a deep passion for the sport. He implements a rigorous training regime and instills discipline, teamwork, and resilience in the players.
Under his guidance, the Kano team trans.