Underplayed Gems

The Burmese Harp (1956)

The Burmese Harp poster
Original title
ビルマの竪琴
Directed by
Kon Ichikawa
Genre
drama film
Country
Japan
Runtime
1h 56m
Rating
7.8 of 10 from 173 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

After World War II ends, a group of Japanese soldiers in Burma search for a missing comrade. They wonder if the Buddhist monk they see playing a harp is their friend who disappeared.

melancholicsolemnreflectivecontemplativepoignanttenderquietsomber

What happens

The Burmese Harp (ビルマの竪琴, Biruma no Tategoto; a.k.a. Harp of Burma) is a 1956 Japanese drama film directed by Kon Ichikawa. Based on a children's novel of the same name written by Michio Takeyama, it tells the story of Japanese soldiers who fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II. A member of the group goes missing after the war, and the soldiers hope to uncover whether their friend survived, and if he is the same person as a Buddhist monk they see playing a harp. The film was among the first to show the losses of the war from a Japanese soldier's perspective. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1956. In 1985, Ichikawa remade The Burmese Harp in color with a new cast, and the remake was a major box office success, becoming the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in 1985 and the second largest Japanese box office hit up to that time. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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