HIROSHIMA, March 29 (Reuters) - Best picture winner

"Oppenheimer" finally premiered in Japan on Friday, eight months

after a controversial grassroots marketing push and concerns

about how its nuclear theme would be received in the only

country to suffer atomic bombing.

The biggest winner at this month's Academy Awards, the film

directed by Christopher Nolan about U.S. physicist J. Robert

Oppenheimer, who led the race to develop the atomic bomb, has

grossed nearly $1 billion globally.

But Japan had been left out of worldwide screenings until

now, despite being a major market for Hollywood. Nuclear blasts

devastated its western city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the

south at the close of World War Two, killing more than 200,000.

"Of course this is an amazing film which deserves to win the

Academy Awards," said Hiroshima resident Kawai, 37, who gave

only his family name.

"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that

seems to praise it, and, as a person with roots in Hiroshima, I

found it difficult to watch."

A big fan of Nolan's films, Kawai, a public servant, went to

see "Oppenheimer" on opening day at a theatre that is just a

kilometre from the city's Atomic Bomb Dome.

"I'm not sure this is a movie that Japanese people should

make a special effort to watch," he added.

Images on social media showed signs posted at the entrances

to some Tokyo theatres, warning that the movie featured images

of nuclear tests that could evoke the damage caused by the

bombs.

Another Hiroshima resident, Agemi Kanegae, had mixed

feelings upon finally watching the movie.

"The film was very worth watching," said the retired

65-year-old. "But I felt very uncomfortable with a few scenes,

such as the trial of Oppenheimer in the United States at the

end."

The film quickly became a global hit after opening in the

United States last July. But many Japanese were offended by

fan-created "Barbenheimer" online memes that linked it to

"Barbie", a frothy blockbuster that opened around the same time.

Universal Pictures initially left Japan off its global

release schedule for "Oppenheimer". Eventually picked up by

Bitters End, a Japanese distributor of independent films, it was

given a release date for after the Oscar awards ceremony.

Speaking to Reuters before the movie opened, atomic bomb

survivor Teruko Yahata said she was eager to see it, in hopes

that it would re-invigorate the debate over nuclear weapons.

Yahata, now 86, said she felt some empathy for the physicist

behind the bomb. That sentiment was echoed by Rishu Kanemoto, a

19-year-old student, who saw the film on Friday.

"Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the atomic bombs were

dropped, are certainly the victims," Kanemoto said.

"But I think even though the inventor is one of the

perpetrators, he's also the victim caught up in the war," he

added, referring to the ill-starred physicist.