This was a remake of the 1968 classic movie based on a non-fiction novel by Shoji Kimoto. This two part series was made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Fuji Television Network.
The story is about construction of 4th Kurobe dam which was like the Japanese version of the Hoover or Grand Coolly dam. The dam had to be made in the wilderness of the mountains, and roads had to be custom made to reach the building site. One tunnel especially gave the company hard time to bore through, and best technicians, engineers, and workers were gathered to create a tunnel through area know as Fossa Magna - a great pressure zone of pulverized rocks and water caused by the tectonic force that bend the main island of Japan.
In the post war days, Japan was growing into a first world nation. With it came the demand for electricity. Like some parts of the world, Japanese citizens living in Kansai region had to put up with frequent black out period. To cope with this, Kansai Electric company planned to make the largest dam in the history of Japan. The two part series is the story about the company's effort to finance, gather the work force, and build this dam that they called Kuroyon damu (4th Kurobe dam).
Shingo Katori puts on a good performance as the tunnel digger, and other casts and crew also puts in a superb show of talent.
This is a beautifully done drama that is deep and entertaining. There are so many characters that appears in this drama to name each one, but each adds to the story to make one of the best TV drama made. It also shows the difficulty of construction when technology was still at primitive stage of development.
The movie succeeds in creating a transporting experience that takes you back in time, and place where things were different but had beauty all its own.
