He is Prasanta Pal, son of Radha Binod Pal who is a hero for an entire generation of Japanese people in the traumatic years after the Second World War. For, Radha Binod Pal was one of the three dissenting judges in the Tokyo Tribunal which, in 1948, convicted 28 -- among them was Tojo -- for war crimes, including the massacre of thousands at Nanking.

Radha Binod said in his ruling that whatever Tojo, the prime accused, did was ``out of pure patriotic motives'' and to end Western colonialism. This made the judge as much a public hero as Tojo, who was finally executed.Director Shunya Ito's film Pride, The Fateful Moment gives top billing to Tojo and although it presents Pal in a positive light, the judge plays second fiddle. This has angered his son.

In November 1995, Prasanta Pal got a letter from Masaki Tanaka, a leadinglight of the war generation. Tanaka proposed: ``A popular drama film on your father's life...would contribute in a powerful way to restore the Japanese people's historical perspectives and help bring about Japan's rebirth. Such a Japan could contribute immensely to strengthening peace and stability in Asia.''

Then followed a series of letters from Japan to Pal. His south Calcutta residence became something of a pilgrimage centre for people involved in the film project. They came there to collect materials on the judge's life and even shoot for the planned film.

Prasanta had accompanied his father to Tokyo when he first went there in May, 1946, to join the trial bench. His father, a retired judge of the Calcutta High Court, had been recommended by the Chief Justice (then a British man) to join the bench.

The film crew, Prasanta says, had told him that his father would be the centre of the film. However, it was in 1997 when the ``first shock'' came. He was in Kyoto to attend a ceremony in which the citydedicated a monument to his father when he heard about Pride from Tojo's grand-daughter. ``That was not the film which I had known about all this time,'' he says.

After Pride was released in Tokyo in May, Prasanta wrote an angry letter to Tanaka asking how the original plan was abandoned and how Tojo, and not Pal, came to be the central character of the film.

Tanaka wrote back last month, admitting that ``the project originally was conceived as a feature film around your venerable father and his monumental verdict.'' But the Tokyo Film Company, one of the co-producers, changed the focus to Tojo because of his ``mass appeal,'' Tanaka said.

It may seem a minor issue to many but for Prasanta, a retired government employee, it's a sense of betrayal. His father, the judge who got international fame for his ruling in the Tokyo Trials died in January, 1967 a poor man. And it was the film his son was banking on to record his father's role for posterity.

The grateful Japanese did offer help. For a series ofpublications incorporating his judgment, he was offered ``any sum.'' But Prasanta Pal has declined and suggested that the money be paid to the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His father would have liked that.