In 1942, in Java, the British Major Jack 'Strafer' Celliers (David Bowie) arrives in the Japanese POW camp and is submitted to a Japanese court to examine his surrender. He explains that the Japanese soldiers would murder the local villagers and he decided to surrender to avoid the massacre. The camp commander Captain Yonoi (Ryûichi Sakamoto) feels a sort of fascination for Jack and sends him to the infirmary to be treated. The liaison of the prisoners with Yonoi and Sergeant Gengo Hara (Takeshi Kitano), Colonel John Lawrence (Tom Conti), has lived in Japan for many years and can understand both cultures and their leader is Captain Hicksley (Jack Thompson). When the rebel Jack leaves the infirmary, he challenges Yonoi, who is a man that follows the principles of honor and discipline. Yonoi believes that Jack is possessed by demons and their confrontation will lead the British to a tragic end. Yesterday my homage to David Bowie was watching again maybe for the fourth or fifth time one of his best films. "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" is certainly one of the best anti-war films ever made. The beginning with the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto indicates how classy it is. This film has not lost the impact along the years and it is impressive how the difference of Western and Japanese cultures is depicted through the British Jack 'Strafer' Celliers and the Japanese Yonoi. In between there is John Lawrence, a man who can understand both sides based on his life experience. Psychology explains that in areas involving control, such as dominance, people tend to pair up with their opposites. Therefore the sick discussion about homosexuality of Yonoi and Jack is ridiculous. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Furyo, Em Nome da Honra" ("Furyo, In Name of the Honor")

« Senjo no Merry Christmas »"Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence" is a sentence used twice in the movie in the middle and at the end, in fact during key times. "Furyo" is the European name of the movie; it refers to the Japanese "war prisoners".Story: The story takes place during World War II in a prisoner camp in Java Island (Indonesia), the camp is led by the Japanese, English and American soldiers are prisoners. Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) is the director of the camp. He's authoritative, nobody can bear him and all fear him… he embodies the traditional Japanese way of mind, which will be totally jeopardized by a new captive, Jack Celliers (David Bowie) an English soldier. Celliers will defend himself and is state of mind all along the movie. During the movie we follow this total clash of culture between the two soldiers, a clash which will approach them. The two guys… We can notice another duo ,with colonel Jonh Lawrence (Tom Conti) who is able to talk Japanese and sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano), they are in good term but the war create a gap between them…Characters: 1-David Bowie is major Jack Celliers… I think it's true to say that it is Bowie's best role on screen , however he ranks under the performance of Conti… moreover it's a bit pity that he didn't take part in the film music just because he thought it could discredit his performance…2- Ryuchi Sakamoto is captain Yonoi, Sakamoto was then considered in Japan as Bowie in the West, he did the soundtrack of the movie. Through him we see all the complexity of the samurai tradition; he doesn't know what to do when facing other customs, there is a part of love and a part of fear; he is already a round character. There are some stereotypes about the Asian performance (for example: the overplay) but here these ones are inexistent he suits the character without any kind of artifact…3- Tom Conti embodies colonel Lawrence, thanks to this movie Conti received an award for the best actor by the National Board of Review, and I think its nothing for such a good performance …4- Takeshi Kitano is Sergeant Genjo Hara, he is the one who says "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" , he is the only Japanese who has something… I don't know… human? First we imagine that he is a flat character (mostly because he drinks a lot) but we realize it's wrong, he is a key character in the storyThere are many more characters but these ones are the most important. However it's a shame that Conti and Kitano don't appear on the European cove because they are as interesting as Bowie and Sakamoto!The soundtrack: In this movie you cannot forget to talk about the soundtrack! First: because there are two pop stars in the movie: David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto…and because it's just wonderful. Sure Bowie didn't take parts of it but whoa! I'm just breathtaking by so much emotion just in a song…Personal opinion :Sure everything is clever, the actors performance, the different scenes with many long shots which are great, and the soundtrack, sorry The soundtrack! But I don't want to watch it again … I don't know why , I was not so impressed

I finally watched this yesterday and I am going to go out on a limb and register my disappointment with the film. When you look back on a film made when Bowie was at his peak, you have to consider his star power in being cast in a Japanese film. He is a fine actor and his work, small in number, is good enough to consider watching in other films. I feel that he was miscast for this film or put another way round, was cast because he was the blue eyed wonder boy from British pop. I mean, a English pop star in the same film as a Japanese pop star? Flags should have gone up on that. In Bowie's defence, he's not given a lot of latitude to move around in his role or much in the way of dialogue. He is used to glare at the camera a lot or else munch on flowers in a grotesque scene that, if important, passes over our heads. Conti is an excellent actor but what drove me nuts was his smirk or smile or fawning good humour with his Japanese tormentors, who were regularly killing soldiers. It made very little sense in the context of what camp life was really like for POW's. The flashback scenes to Cellier's childhood made little sense. What are we to make of this other than he has feelings of guilt, for having been such a cold hearted jack ass to his kid brother? So what are we to make of this guilt? It is not developed in a direct and full manner in the film. I mean, if you want to coat the film with Shakespearean drama, then do something with the guilt. Nothing; and so, it makes little sense.Which leads me to a deeper sense of disappointment. I might be dead wrong, but I had the sense throughout the whole film that the really shocking horrors of what the Japanese really did to prisoners were bleached a bit, sanitized to make the film more palatable to the Japanese market. It is fairly well known that the Japanese to this date have not dealt with their war crimes in a full face on mea culpa. Not even close to the soul cleansing that the German people have done and seen in their movies and literature. Go and ask the South Koreans, Chinese or Vietnamese what they think of the Japanese, especially about their war crimes and you'll get a totally different perspective than this film shows. I mean, it is not that Japanese films cannot be bloodily and bluntly honest. Most of Kurosawa's films are unsentimental, brutal and fearless in depicting the savagery of the Japanese warrior.Consider then, what this topic would look like if made by a British director, who might have known Brits who survived a Japanese concentration camp? I dare say that the drama would not have been so ambiguous, teetering as it does several times, on the travails of a camp commander as he has his Shakespearean moments of doubt. I was so sick and tired of the commandants pouting facial gestures and his childish tirades. If you really want a taste of what these camps were like then forget about this rather silly film. Read the book "Unbroken". It is a stupendous book on all levels and it covers the survival of a man in the midst of the most brutal, savage and bestial actions, that take place in a Japanese POW camp. That is the real heart of darkness and it is watered down in this film. I was not impressed. "The Bridge over the River Kwai" is far superior. This film should be remade and not by a Japanese director, with all due respects to some of their excellent cinema.

An enigmatic tone piece from internationally acclaimed Nagisa Oshima, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a left-of-center look at the moods of a WWII P.O.W. Camp. Comparisons to The Bridge on the River Kwai cannot be avoided (not that the producers strove to do such) but this film is a very different animal indeed.As posited by Jeremy Thomas in a supplemental interview, "What happens when a Japanese filmmaker makes a Japanese P.O.W. camp movie?" Something like this film in which the elegiac tone is oh so much more important than anything else. David Bowie's constant, downbeat independence vs. Tom Conti's fierce loyalty vs. Takeshi Kitano's upbeat clown pose... these are the most important elements of the piece. The humid tropics of Java help tell the story of a wound up prison camp in Indonesia during W.W.II. Cryptic Jack Celliers (Bowie) joins the titular Lawrence (Conti) and his crew of British soldiers under the auspices of the jocular Hara (Kitano) and Yonoi (pop star Ryuichi Sakamoto, pulling double duties as the composer). Their relationships form the backbone of the film as they all vie for control. Celliers and Yonoi's ambivalent relationship moves the film along while the Japanese-speaking and mannered Lawrence constantly bickers with Hara about equal treatment.The film has a definitive Western feel in the setting up of the story. It is based on a South Afrikaner's memoir and written by a British screenwriter. The back-and-forth dialogue, particularly during rigid two way conversations speak to this. But Oshima lets the music pulsate along and tracks along, showing how these men affected each other. By the conclusion the audience is so thoroughly engrossed in just the ambiance that they forget everything else. Unlike Oshima's more extreme In the Realm of the Senses, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a relatively easy act to follow. Although not as artistically rewarding, it is equally worth watching.