"The cherry blossom team scattered") is a 1988 Japanese documentary film and docudrama[3] written and directed by Kaneto Shindō.
[1][2][4] Based on a nonfictional story by Hagie Ezu, it depicts the fate of the Sakura ("cherry blossom") theatre troupe, several of whose members were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
[9] In Kinema Junpo magazine's list of the 10 best Japanese films of the year, Sakura-tai Chiru reached #7 in 1988.
[8] Comparing Sakura-tai Chiru with Shindō's earlier Children of Hiroshima, Lauri Kitsnik saw a "much more realist style" in the bombing montage sequence.
At the same time, Shindō's emphasising of artificiality and mixing of styles and art forms point at "the inevitability of staging in cinema and the impossibility of non-fiction".