The Big Wave (film)

The Big Wave  is a 1961 melodrama film based on the 1948 novel by Pearl S. Buck. The film was directed and produced by Tad Danielewski from a screenplay co-written with Buck, and stars Sessue Hayakawa, Mickey Curtis, Koji Shitara, and Hiroyuki Ota. The story follows two boys, Yukio (played by Ota and Curtis) and Toru (Shitara and Ichizo Itami), growing up in a coastal village that is often threatened by natural disasters. Their friendship is strained when both develop feelings for the same ama girl, Haruko (Reiko Higa).

After working together on a 1956 television adaptation of The Big Wave for NBC, Buck and Danielewski formed the independent production company Stratton Productions. The film adaptation began development in early 1960. Buck visited Japan in May 1960 for the initial meetings but returned to the United States that June after her husband's death, briefly pausing her involvement. During pre-production, Japanese co-producer Toho appointed a Japanese co-director, who ultimately left due to conflicts with Danielewski. Principal photography lasted from September to November 1960, on location in Japan. It became a pioneering American-Japanese co-production and the film debut of both Buck and Danielewski. Buck later authored a memoir, A Bridge for Passing (1962), recounting her experiences during the film's production.

The Big Wave was screened in Hirosaki and Niigata in 1961, and released in the United States on April 29, 1962. It garnered mostly favorable reviews from Western critics, with praise for its acting, story, special effects, and cinematography, but criticism for the slow pacing. A lack of existing contemporary documentation has made its box office total, as well as exact screening dates in Japan, unknown. The film has since become largely unavailable to the general public. A print owned by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute was screened in Unzen, Nagasaki on October 29, 2005, but has since been disposed of. As of 2018, the Library of Congress owned the only known remaining viewable print of the film.