Honoring Self Defense Forces in Iraq: Women To Rescue Sunken Samurai Souls

Samurai sword treasure trove found by undersea exploration company. Women to play central roles in a webcast and televised rescue mission. An interactive online feature will also enable other global demographics to observe and participate. Self Defense Force will be honored for its distinguished reconstruction service in Iraq.

Kennesaw, GA May 5, 2004 -- Fans of blockbuster films The Last Samurai, Kill Bill and Die Another Day rejoice. Coming soon to a computer and mobile phone near you: hundreds of discovered Samurai swords. An exploration company has identified a treasure trove of Samurai swords and is preparing a deep-sea retrieval operation. Associated European firms (including the Hammurabi Reconstruction company) will co-produce streams of interactive broadband content and games for wireless, Internet, cable, satellite and teen mobile markets.

At the end of the Pacific War in 1945 certain Allied forces disarmed and repatriated a large unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that had fiercely fought on until the Emperors order to surrender. Later, and just before boarding ships bound for Japan, hundreds of officers (many of them Samurai descendents) were forced at gunpoint to discard their warrior-class bladed weapons. Those battle swords were loaded onto a nearby captured boat that was towed out to sea and scuttled.

The exploration company Ferrumar has acquired a Japanese eyewitnesss account of the incident as well as an annotated nautical chart showing where the antiquities-loaded craft sank. Due to the heirlooms provenance and types (katana long blades and wakizashi short blades) the firm expects its expedition to find many Kokuho, or national treasures, each reportedly worth US$ 500,000 to 1m-plus at auction, plus numerous other culturally significant swords.

Tom Cruise & Wesley Snipes Need Not Audition

This unusual and premium discovery will be televised and webcast, and a documentary film will be produced on the artifact rescue operation. Prior to the expedition Ferrumar will host a globally-interactive competition that may include, among others, stars from three recent Samurai sword-featuring films: Lucy Liu, Julie Dreyfus and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill; Koyuki in The Last Samurai; Rosamund Pike and Halle Berry from Die Another Day. Only online and mobile female viewers will elect one woman (who they feel best embodies the warrior spirit) to become the expeditions spokeswoman and film narrator.

Contestants will be partly judged on characteristics displayed by two heroic Samurai women from the past. Tomoe Gozen fought at her husband's side at the River Uji in 12th century feudal Japan. She reportedly survived to become a Buddhist nun. Nakano Takeko from Kagoshima belonged to a front-line combat unit in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, during the Meiji imperial restoration. She died defending Wakamatsu Castle.

Ferrumar

In the early 1990s this privately held intellectual capital and new media content firm developed a deepwater venture (with Japanese foundation, university and government support) to salvage from Japans territorial waters former President George Bushs sunken World War II aircraft. Support was arranged with: the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office, Japanese Embassy (Washington, DC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Transportation, Maritime Safety Agency, RESTEC, Japan Defense Agency, National Institute for Defense Studies, and Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute. Corporate alliances were arranged with: Silicon Graphics, Control Data, Alias, Intergraph and Motorola. The project was cancelled after Mr. Bushs defeat in the 1992 Presidential Election.

Ceremony

During the Samurai swords mission the recovered fine-art objects will be conserved and restored as close to their original splendor as possible. During a public ceremony in Japan many will be conveyed to Self Defense Force units as medals to recognize the valor and devotion of all those sons of Japan who serve her in Iraq to restore electricity and water services.

The rescued Samurai heirlooms are to symbolically re-connect Japan's modern warriors with their ancient code of discipline, devotion and skill, befitting their nation's rich heritage and economic stature. The event will also be a private-sector gesture of support and appreciation for the Japanese nation's progressive thinking regarding its new foreign policy role, which is certain to usher in a new era of international engagement and domestic renewal.

Contact Information:
Jim Egan, Director
Ferrumar
+1.770.427.6546

Background:
Tokugawa Museum -- http://www.cjn.or.jp/tokugawa/english/
Japanese Sword Museum -- http://www.tcvb.or.jp/en/infomation/5museum/23sword.html
Academy Awards -- http://www.oscar.com/
Kill Bill -- http://www.kill-bill.com/
Die Another Day -- http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=newsmaker&id=99
The Last Samurai -- http://lastsamurai.warnerbros.com/