The Cove movie review by Kenneth Turan

The Japanese fishing village featured in ” The Cove ,” a documentary film by Kenneth Turan an American animal rights activists fighting against the Taiji dolphin hunt which won an Oscar for best Documentary, defended its practice of hunting dolphins Monday as a part of a long tradition. The movie, which mixes stunning underwater shots of gliding dolphins with covertly filmed grisly footage of their slaughter, also claims that dolphin meat is laden with toxic mercury. Taiji, a quiet fishing village on the rocky coast of southwestern Japan, kills only a small fraction of the dolphins…

Meanwhile japanprob reported that a Fuji TV crew went to the small town of Taiji to see how locals would react to the news:

The few people interviewed feel that the documentary was biased and unfair and are disappointed to hear it won an award. In response to the news, the local government of Taiji released a statement in which it denounced the claims made in the film about high levels of mercury in dolphin meat posing a danger to the health of Taiji’s residents.

Back in the news studio, the Fuji TV anchors agree that the film was biased. One says just showing images of dolphins being killed without properly explaining Taiji’s long history of eating whale/dolphin meat was unfair. The other compared it to the infamous YouTube video of male chicks being crushed to death at an American factory farm. If a Japanese film company decided to make a documentary highlighting the cruelty and brutality of how Americans slaughter chickens or other “meat” animals, would it be able to win an Academy Award?