this be probably the great war film and certainly one of the great film . there no sentimentality and no patriotic agenda and not even a hopeful message of universal brotherhood in this bleak glimpse of what we can only call hell . it this quiet rigor and lack of manipulation that give the film it astound power . there aren not any attempt to make a hero out of ichikawa protagonist tamura either . he just a poor doomed sap try to stay alive in a world of horror who hop and but isn not sure and he can hang on to his humanity in the process . ichikawa fierce lack of cant and illusion make fire on the plain stand alone . ichikawa die february 2008 .