Castle of Sand (1974) Trivia Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What are the two main police officers' ranks in the film?

Answer: Inspector and Detective

Imanishi is an Inspector and Yoshimura is a detective. The film opens up with the two following a lead in the village of Kameda. Imanishi is older and comes off as a quiet and cautious Inspector who writes haikus on the side. Yoshimura is a young detective who is excitable and emotional, and strives to get the job done with an idealistic viewpoint.

2. After visiting with the local police station in Kameda and hearing about a stranger who came to town, what do the two police officers from Tokyo find?

Answer: Nothing of significance

A police officer at the station tells the two officers from Tokyo about a stranger who came to town with a Tohoku accent and stayed at a local inn. The inn keeper tells the detectives that he didn't like his look or the clothes he was wearing. The two detectives go and talk to a couple of other witnesses who just said he stood, sat, laid down, and wandered around under a tree by a stream and bridge and then left town.

3. In a flashback scene in the beginning of the film, how was the murder victim killed?

Answer: Head and face bashed in

The murder occurred on June 24, 1971 in the early morning at the Kamata Rail Yard in Tokyo. No identification was found on the body of an older man in his early to mid 60s. The police deduce that he was killed by a blunt object to his face and head but made to appear as if hit by a train or other vehicle.

They have outlines marking evidence on the tracks, and there's a scene showing someone taking blood samples from the victim's head.

4. On the trip back home Iminashi and Yoshimura go to the dining car to have lunch and a beer and discuss what they could have missed. Apparently, unbeknownst to them there's a famous composer in the dining car. What is the name of this character?

Answer: Eiryo Waga

Yoshimura talks about how Waga has recently become famous and how he read that a "big American orchestra invited him" to the United States and that he's the most "promising young star in the Japanese music scene" as an accomplished pianist.

5. While Yoshimura is supposed to be working on a new case he's still thinking about the old one. He reads in the newspaper about this girl named Rieko Takagi outside a moving train scattering some lightweight objects. What are these lightweight objects?

Answer: Confetti

In the scene it shows a woman's arm stretched out holding cut up paper and gently allowing the rush of wind to remove it from her hand as if in a graceful manner. Yoshimura calls the newspaper to find out more about what type of confetti she scattered outside the train window, and the editor says that he can introduce him to her, so Yoshimura meets the girl Takagi at a restaurant bar where she works at.

She denies being the girl on the train with her co-worker sitting on the other side of Yoshimura.

She excuses herself from the table and then never comes back.

6. A man comes to the police station and identifies the clothes as his father's. The police take him to where the body is being held at a medical school and he identifies the man as his father. His father told his son he was going to a shrine and he never returned. Is he the victim's biological son?

Answer: No

The son comes forward after his father is missing for 50 days. He makes a missing person's report and an officer shows him a photo of his deceased father and then his son travels to Tokyo to make an in-person identification. In talking with the detectives he says his father was named Kenichi Miki, and lived in the Aida District of Okayama Prefecture, and reveals that he's not his biological son and that Miki didn't have any biological children.

7. Imanishi finds out that the victim went to Emi Town (Okayama Prefecture) and finds out that the victim went to a movie in a two day period. At the end of the scene at the theater, he has a look of surprise and then the picture zooms in on a photograph directly behind him. Who's in the photograph?

Answer: The former Finance Minister

Imanishi goes to the theater to find out what film the victim saw to see if it would give him any clues, and finds it was a double bill. He then leaves but comes back and finds out the theater showed two different films the second day the victim came.

The zoom in on the photo is a nod to an earlier scene where it shows the pianist/composer from the train, Waga, having dinner with the former Finance Minister whose daughter he's engaged to.

8. Earlier in the film Imanishi goes to a village to learn more about the victim and learns that the victim, at one time, was also a police officer and that he helped many people. He travels to the village where the father and son came from and inquires whether the son ever came back to the village. What's the name of the son?

Answer: Hideo

In the conversation it is learned that the wife and mother of the father and son passed away a few years after breaking up with her husband. The father and son left the village with funds given by the people, and never returned again.

9. Imanishi and Yoshimura have solved the case. It is learned that 'Hideo' and 'Waga' are the same person. The reason they left the village is because his father had what disease?

Answer: Leprosy

Imanishi explains the research he found with the other officers on the case. Then Yoshimura explains the connection of Rieko and what the confetti was from earlier - that it was Waga's bloody shirt and she was his mistress. Also in this scene we learn why Waga killed the victim; even though Waga's father had leprosy he was still alive and the victim wanted him to see his father but Waga wouldn't believe his father was still alive.

10. Imanishi continues to speak after Yoshimura finishes telling the story of the beggar and his son. As Imanishi tells this story Waga is playing a concert where his music is the backdrop of Imanishi's story. What's the name of Waga's composition?

Answer: Destiny

In an earlier scene Waga's fianc�e mentions the composition Waga's working on as "Destiny" and what it means. Waga replies that "no one knows" but everyone will know when it's finished. When Imanishi tells the story of the beggar and son it cuts away to Waga's concert.

Then when the concert begins it goes to a flashback of the father and son and the tribulations they faced but the love they always had for each other.

Source: Author Nammage

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor jmorrow before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

"Castle of Sand" (Japanese title: "Suna no utsuwa") is my favorite Japanese film. It's about the investigation into the murder of an old man in Tokyo, Japan. (Contains spoilers!)

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