Under the Flag of the Rising Sun is one of those Japanese movies about WW2 that harshly critique militarism, war atrocities and the mindset of the people involved in it. It was produced independently by Fukasaku and based on the novel by Shoji Yuki, and tells the story of a widow trying to piece together the puzzle of her soldier husband's death on the front.The filming style here is really something to behold. There are many war flashbacks that alternate from color to black and white, normal image to inverted colors, still stock images to live action scenes that often accentuate their shots as still pictures themselves and slow motion scenes of excessive violence among soldiers. Most of this is set to a dramatic orchestral soundtrack, often combined with Dutch angles and Fukasaku's trademark shaky cam. Connecting flashbacks with present time is also common, like in the scene where the retired veteran takes a walk with his granddaughter, and meets two characters, one in the flashback, the other in present time, the change between two times being accompanied by the change from monochrome to color.The acting is very believable and adds to the strong atmosphere of the movie (fun fact - this is the second time actor Noboru Mitani has to play a poor man living in a garbage-filled shanty, the first time is in Dodes'ka-den). Like most post-war Japanese films that tell about the war itself, it's very solemn, dark and with a negative portrayal of, name it, the government, the Emperor, the soldiers, the post-war society refusing to care about the veterans, and of the horrors of war in general.

If Japanese war films are snubbed in the West, that's not done on any political grounds. The Japanese are not only the first to condemn the rigid militarism that brought them to the brink of complete destruction following WWII but the only ones to offer that condemnation against Emperor and Generals in such a scathing manner. If you won't find films like this or THE BATTLE OF OKINAWA mentioned in the same lists as their Vietnam-war American counterparts like APOCALYPSE NOW, it has to do with the same cultural reasons that keep Japanese (or French and Italian) crime films in the shadow while Scorsese, Tarantino and their cohorts reap all the glory.And even when the spotlight falls on the individual, the lowly Japanese soldier haphazardly trained in a few weeks time and sent with meager provisions to conquer New Guinea, the Philippines, or Indonesia in the name of the 'Motherland', the focus is not on a heroic celebration of courage and valor because these men where not heroes and what courage they showed in the face of death was instilled in them by the fear of worse things like malaria and malnutrition or even worse, the fear of their superiors executing them for cowardice, but on grim endurance beyond all hope and glory with nothing else to look forward to but returning home to a wartorn devastated country. The chaos squalor and misery of postwar Japan Kinji Fukasaku knows firsthand. It's the place and time he grew up in and the memory of that misery would resurface regularly in his films as a bleak backdrop to the yakuza films through which he became known and for which he never received the acclaim he deserved.This is the greatest success of UNDER THE FLAG OF THE RISING SUN. Not the narrative maze of the script carrying echoes of RASHOMON and even CITIZEN KANE that has the wife of an executed soldier trying to piece together the life and death of her husband in New Guinea through the memories of his surviving comrades and superiors. It's the hopelessness and savagery of men trying to survive like beasts in the jungle, this relived in a booming 1960's modern Japan by the survivors in the form of flashbacks, that sets apart films like this and Kon Ichikawa's FIRES IN THE PLAIN from their American counterparts. Major battle scenes and historic events are in the background, presented in Fukasaku's trademark quick montages using stock photos. It's the day-to-day tragic struggle for survival for which there is no glory to be had that pucks the real punch and it's enough of a punch to make you ignore the problematic script or poor handling of exposition. In the end, one of the survivors living in a garbage-strewn shantytown outside of Tokyo, bemoans not the misery and destruction of postwar Japan but its rapid economic growth that has no room for scarred veterans like him. Vietnam veterans of 30 years later would relate.

If you are thinking of watching this, you need to know what your are getting into first. This is a violent movie, in the extreme.I do not ordinarily watch violent movies. But I am glad I watched this one, even though I had to turn away a few times. The subject matter is about violence, and the director pulls no punches.It is so easy to romanticize war, either in victory or defeat. This movie clearly has a message for the Japanese people about WWII that the director intends them never to forget. That it was received so well, speaks well of the Japanese people's honesty. And it has a message for her Asian neighbors who suffered at the hands of Japanese soldiers, that perhaps hate is no longer appropriate.Viewing it as an American, I was struck by how different the image is from that of the well-disciplined soldier presented almost as a polite stereotype in Hollywood movies. An American director could not have gotten away with such a movie. However, I can't help wondering if this is perhaps not exactly a representative view of what Japanese soldiers went through.The movie is told very effectively through its plot, following the inquiries of the war widow into the death of her husband. As the truth comes out, it hits you in the gut much as it would have hit this widow.At the same time, the director apparently did not intend for this film to be viewed too narrowly as an antiwar movie. It is not just about war, and it is not just about Japanese soldiers, it is about human beings, and what any of us might do in similar circumstances.

What's the truth,and what does it bring us ? That's the question what carries this movie up to a level of masterpiece. I will not say that this IS a masterpiece since it also has it flaws, but to come to the plot of this movie, it is about a war widow (Sachiko Hidari) which seeks out the ministry of welfare, in order to clear her late husbands name (who was a sergeant in the war)from the name of "desertor". For almost 20 years she is trying to get some answer on her late husbands strange death, and in 1971, when the head of the department of ministry of Welfare changes, she tries it again. (like every year) The man, just like his predecessors, can't clear her husbands name, however feeling sorry for her, gives her a list of 4 names who didn't respond on the inquiry of her husbands death, so she can seek out the truth herself.This is where the problem starts, for all 4 men ( 1 first class private, a corporal, a military police officer, and a 2nd grade lieutenant) tell her 4 different story's about her late husbands death. The only questions is who is right, and who lies, and as last who simply doesn't know. All the men state at first (which is remarkable) that they simply don't recall much from that time, and apart from from that the military records are not complete, so the widow will never have any prove of the story on how her husband died. This is an interesting factor which shows that even in this movie, Japan still can not deal with it's history.Back to the movie itself and the review. Sachiko Hidari who plays the widow does a good job on the leading lady here, for her desperation doesn't seem unreal, however sometimes a little overacted. In my opinion it is Tetsuro Tamba who plays the role of one of the returned soldiers from the war who deserves the most credit. He plays the first soldier (private first class) who lives in a dump, between tramps an beggars, and his image of this soldiers who cannibalized on his fellow soldiers is so haunting that it doesn't leave the mind. After his deed of feeding on their flesh because of starvation, he returns in the slums of Tokyo feeling secure, among the chaos. But when Japan cleans up he feels left behind, he feels still dirty (and guilty) and decides to live among the slums in a back alley ghetto dump (very ironic as a PIG farmer). Of the four war witnesses, he is the strongest representation of the carnage pf chaos of it, but that doesn't mean the other 3 are just loose sand. The power of this picture lies in the story's of these 4 men who will tell you about the horrors of that war.Fukasaku Kinji (Battle Royal, the Geisha House, Fall Guy) has made a very interesting documentary of war, crafted in the form of a motion picture. The film is in color but the flashbacks upon what happened to Sachiko Hidari husband are all in monochrome black and white (except for the strongest shots which switch over into color. Together with some freezing time frames, and b/w picture of the war and holocaust, this picture is trying to make clear that war IS nothing but chaos. Fukasaku's direction is good, however, as said, he is victimizing the wrong group in my eyes. I is understandable as Japanese that he does this, but it doesn't make it right. I don't want to me a moralist, but this is something that Japans just keeps denying (and it affects me for my roots are German, and we confessed to all of the war crimes, but through the incident with the atomic bomb, Japan got away with the victim label) Back to the theme, the pictures of holocaust don't shock anymore, as much as they might have in 1972. (for all those who have seen the war pictures and tapes of Europe from the second world war), but still they leave behind a strong impression on how brutal, and more important how REAL this was. This isn't fiction, it is very much real, and there is still a rather unbelief to what humans are capable of. This films doesn't deny anything from it's image that is inhuman. it shows you the torture (although only of Japanese people, there is only 1 foreigner that get's killed here openly before the camera) of soldiers, the cannibalism, the vermin, the blood lust of officers, the madness, and the chaotic structure. What is left behind are the feeling of fear, you can see it in all the 4 men who are left behind to tell the tale of it.This movie is not an action flick in the sense of "saving private Ryan" or "Pearl Harbour". This is a slow (or more slower) movie that has it's power in the story it has to say. The camera actions (the image)of the picture is not that new or uncommon, but it hits the nerve of the open wound. To be more precise the story fits the image that Fukasaku shows you.What also was a relieve that this picture didn't care much for heroism that Hollywood filmmakers give their pieces a lot of times, no it's shows us how low people can get if it comes to survive. For anyone who goes beyond Hollywood cinema joy, and a nice night at the movies, an interesting piece to watch, and if it was only to hear the story from A. the Japanese side, and B. the hear a second world war tale which isn't about Nazis Europe, Americans or Germans.