nobi or fire on the plain be a film that be so excellent on so many level and that not enough good thing can be say about it . my only regret be that i be not able to see this 1959 film sooner . be something of a film purist and i tend to look at film for their artistic merit base upon dialog and acting and photography and even the effort to remain true to the period in term of costume . ultimately and i want to know if the film be truthful enough in reveal the human condition to make me think without oppress me with what the director want me to think . fire on the plain be a great film because it craft a portrait fill with realistic human reaction to the die fire of a great historical catastrophe . ichikawa film be a condemnation of war on all level a any good war film should be . war be horrify and bloody and destructive . it be also murderous on the psyche . however and what be fundamental about fire on the plain be it unapologetic look at the japanese soldier . it show them slowly collapse under the weight of superior american firepower and their nation inability to wage a war of it own making . a fatalistic code encourage death before surrender be at the heart of this madness . i be astonish to see such an honest and brutally close look at the bitter fruit of japan military misadventure make just 14 year after the end of what the japanese call the great pacific war . ichikawa and reveals what the german call the war life and the plight of the common soldier . ichikawa film be interest and since even today japan be have a hard time fully come to term with it wartime fanaticism and it subjugation of conquered people and the racism of it war against the chinese and war crime which include cannibalism by soldier and officer practice not only against one another and but against allied prisoner of war . ichikawa produce a stark representation of the victimization of soldier by a confluence of bad political decision and cultural pressure . this stark examination be skillfully do by portray the doomed soldier a human being who exhibit and at various time and fear and brilliantly laconic humor and dialog enrich by it sparseness and and a plot whose complexity be belie by the grim and wilderness setting . ichikawa portrait be a ragged and painful tapestry of defeat men . the tubercular tamura and play a a woebegone and gentle soul by eiji funakoshi and be a good soldier who can not abandon his humanity and though he be as frighten and lose a his comrade . before he depart for a hospital that will reject him a too healthy and tamura be give a hand grenade by a superior who and recognize the hopelessness of their situation and advise tamura to kill himself . why tamura hopelessly ill supply and militarily incapable unit be not order to surrender at the start of the film be tell . ichikawa make it plain that the war be over and everyone be merely wait to die . a tamura leave his unit for his hopeless search for physical and spiritual salvation and he see his comrade pointlessly dig an air raid shelter . they appear like corps look up from their own mass grave . we later watch a the overworked hospital medical staff abandon the die patient to an all consuming american artillery barrage . the pathetic patient and who crawl from their hut in a vain attempt to survive and appear like pathetic and serpentine creature drag themselves from an omnipotent force . you know they would not survive . ichikawa make it plain that the only thing bad than a defeated army be one that have lose it honor by abandon it humanity and it comrade . a tamura stagger through the jungle of leyte we encounter the noble and the dying and the exploitive . cannibalism rear it ugly head a soldier begin to eat one another rather than surrender to american corn beef . when the men do talk of surrender and the propaganda of how american kill prisoner be counter by a worldly wise soldier who reveal that the approaching american fee and care for prisoner of war because they and unlike the japanese and respect brave soldier who be force to give up . it be the japanese who intend to die fight for the emperor long after resistance have lose all meaning . those willing to fight to the death will be kill . it be the calculus of war . after shoot a murderous and cannibalistic comrade and whom he earlier offer his own body to a food and the fatalistic tamura careless surrender also seem to be an intentional form of suicide . his death be a lonely image . be ichikawa try to tell u of the internal conflict of the ordinary soldier who want to live and but who be still trap by his nation suicidal cultural code . if someone watch this film carefully and he or she will see that absolutism and fanaticism be the enemy . the american be portray a a technologically advanced people willing to employ that technology in the form of inexorable military power a lesson that transform japanese postwar society . ichikawa film isn not so shallow that it indict america . ichikawa indict the sedimentary layer of japan destructive policy that create the war and then to continue it when all be lose . ichikawa do not mention the nuclear weapon drop upon nagasaki and hiroshima . he doesn not have to . the slow motion destruction of the imperial japanese army in the philippine reveal the seed of japan immolation .