Fires on the Plain (2014)

Original title

野火

Directed by

Shinya Tsukamoto

Genre

drama film

Country

Japan

Runtime

1h 27m

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 40 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A sick Japanese soldier tries to survive in the Philippine jungle near the end of World War II. His fellow troops have become desperate and violent as supplies run out and they are surrounded by enemy forces.

bleakharrowinggrimclaustrophobicunsettlingslow-burnvisceraldesolate

What happens

Fires on the Plain (Japanese: 野火, Hepburn: Nobi) is a 2014 Japanese war film written, produced, directed, edited, co-photographed by and starring Shinya Tsukamoto. The film is based on the 1951 anti-war novel Fires on the Plain, which was a semi-autobiographical work loosely based on author Shōhei Ōoka's experience in World War II. The novel was previously adapted in the 1959 film Fires on the Plain by Kon Ichikawa. The film premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival in 2014, and was released to the wider Japanese box office on 25 July 2015. Fires on the Plain takes place during the final days of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines on the island of Leyte, after the American army had returned. The Japanese army remnants have taken to the jungle after being driven out of the main cities. The Filipinos, after suffering a brutal Japanese occupation, are in little mood to show mercy on their former tormentors, and light the titular bonfires for communication. Japanese soldiers are reduced to little more than bandits and murderers as their supplies dry up and they are encircled by the American-Filipino forces. A delirious and sick Private Tamura attempts to survive an aimless journey through the jungle as starvation drives the surviving soldiers to theft, madness, murder, suicide, and cannibalism. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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