Son of a Man Condemned: Letters with My Dad, My Mother's Killer 死刑囚の子　殺された母と、殺した父へ 2013

©ytv

What if your father were a murderer, and his victim was your mother? Japan still retains capital punishment. This documentary focuses on the family member of a condemned criminal. Hiroto Oyama is 12 years old, and his mother was murdered by his father for insurance money, a repeat of an earlier crime in which his father had killed his own foster-father for the same reason. Hiroto, as the son of both the murderer and the victim, becomes estranged from society. He feels intense hatred towards his father and attempts suicide. When Hiroto visits his father for the first time in three-and-a-half years, he finds his father has physically declined. In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld his father’s conviction and death sentence, and Hiroto’s mental and physical anguish reached its peak. Hiroto's father also has conflicting emotions about seeing his son, which has an impact on his own will to live. However, there’s one thing that Hiroto believes: his father should stay alive and pay for his crimes.