Gary Lennon and Bob Jackson’s remarkable Irish feature documentary A Doctor’s Sword is available to purchase on DVD in stores and online from today, November 20th.
The film is the almost unbelievable tale of a young man from Cork who trained in UCC (Dr Aidan MacCarthy) and survived some of the most harrowing episodes of World War II (including the atomic bombing of Nagasaki), and his family’s search to uncover the origin of the Japanese Samurai sword which he brought home, and which now resides in MacCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere.
Dr Aidan MacCarthy stands as one of the most incredible survivors of World War II. He survived Dunkirk and was later captured by the Japanese in Java, he spent almost four years as a prisoner of war and was less than a mile from the epicentre of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
He was the first non-Japanese doctor to assist civilians in the aftermath of the atomic bomb and when Japan surrendered Aidan was given a Samurai sword by the camp commandant – be the reason was shrouded in mystery for almost 70 years. Aidan’s daughter Nicola travels to Japan in an attempt to discover the origin of the ancestral sword. On her journey Nicola discovers much more about her father’s incredible story and about the war from both the Allied and Japanese sides. Recreated through animation, interviews and archive with a full orchestral score, this is a story of forgiveness and humanity at its highest level.
A Doctor’s Sword can be purchased on DVD in stores including Golden Discs and Tower Records, the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork and the Irish Film Institute in Dublin, MacCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere, and also online on Amazon and the Wildcard Distribution website.
