Very well executed

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

In the last months of the Pacific War Private Tamura of the Japanese Imperial Army is told to report to hospital . If the hospital refuses him a bed he is to commit suicide . He arrives at hospital and told that walking wounded aren't considered casualties and will not be treated . As he plans his next move the hospital comes under bombardment As soon as I saw the opening sequence of this movie I was instantly reminded of the classic Japanese trilogy THE HUMAN CONDITION which was released at the same time . Both films centre around a Japanese soldier who finds himself a member of a beaten army caught in both the unforgiving wilderness and in circumstances they have no control over . As you might expect from a Japanese film from this period it's beautifully framed and has breath taking cinematography and on a visual level comes lose to the old cliché that " once seen never ever forgotten but like THE HUMAN CONDITION there is a considerable problem with the story telling and like Kaji in that trilogy one has a problem believing in Tamura as a real person though for slightly different reasons It is noticeable that even commentators who have praised the film on this page have pointed out something and that is the rather clumsy exposition the film constantly uses . Tamura's platoon leader gives Tamura a long winded explanation on what has happened in the events leading up the opening scene even though Tamura would be fully aware of all this . We get scenes of someone lying dead and someone feels the need to point out that they're even though it's obvious to the audience and not only does Tamura feel the need to point out that someone is dead he also exclaims " Japanese soldiers " to himself when he sees some Japanese soldiers .Some movies suffer from not following the rule " show don't tell " but this film feels the need to show and tell both at the same time . Not to be too ungenerous a lot of war films at this time also suffered from this most especially the British film DUNKIRK where each and every character spouts real life events in the same manner as a history professor would If you stop to think about it , and believe me you don't need to think too hard about it , would there be any need for Tamura to be sent to hospital ? After all his platoon are prepared to fight to the last man and the Americans aren't too far away so why bother sending him to the hospital if he's expected to die very soon ? This is a clumsy plot device to set up an excuse for Tamura to carry the story through to its conclusion . Tamura doesn't really come across as a human being , more as a literary device to be caught up in brutal and harrowing situations . Make no mistake this is sometimes a brutal and genuinely harrowing film and despite being wonderfully shot and containing impressive technical merits it's perhaps a bit too contrived and implausible to be called a true classic of World cinema

Yet again, I appear to be the only person on planet Earth who is capable of criticizing Japanese films made before 1970. "Fires on the Plain" (1959) is another in the seemingly endless line of "classics" that get all sorts of praise for no apparently good reason. As much as I love to overgeneralize and psychoanalyze all of these moviegoers who have such horrible taste in film, it's still nearly impossible to rationalize why anyone would ever think that poorly made fluff like this should be proclaimed as some sort of "masterpiece." What I find truly ironic is that fans of derivative "classics" like "Fires on the Plain" focus so much on "inside the box" movie-making (orthodox grading standards like scriptwriting, acting, camera-work, etc.) yet it always seems like the most highly revered "classics" are most deficient in these very standards. For example, one of the laziest copouts for a filmmaker involves forced verbal exposition where characters basically explain everything for the viewer even when the constructed scenario is totally artificial. Most surprisingly, the very first scene in "Fires on the Plain" uses this indolent tactic to the extreme.After a funny head slap, the following useless dialogue assaults the viewer, "Why can't you grasp the situation? We landed to the west under heavy fire to reinforce units at Tacloban. We lost two-thirds of our men. Our artillery was sunk in transit. We tried to reach Burauen airfield by crossing the central mountains but without artillery it was impossible. The enemy's counterattack forced a fanout across the valley. You know that." So why, exactly, is one character telling another character something he already knows? Oh yeah, that's right, the makers of this film are too lazy to think of more natural ways to communicate this information. You see, a quality film would actually show these events happening, or at worst it would involve dialogue involving one character who has no knowledge of those events. Heck, even an opening summary in paragraph form directed at the viewer would have been better than what transpired here.Such instances of poor quality movie-making are littered throughout "Fires on the Plain" to the point where this film feels like it was written by imbeciles for imbeciles. For example, the lead character stumbles upon some skeletons wrapped in Japanese garb. Instead of doing the natural thing like – oh I don't know – giving a depressed mannerism, the character blurts out "Japanese soldiers." Thanks buddy, but I could have figured that one out for myself.Even worse, this movie is saturated with over-dramatic ploys. The most ridiculous scene involves a pair of boots. Picture this. A soldier walks along and finds a pair of worn out boots. One would think that such a find is utterly useless, but it turns out that the soldier's boots are in even worse condition, so he picks up the worn boots and leaves his SUPER worn boots behind. Fine, I get the point. The soldiers are in rough shape – a fact that is already clearly emphasized with their worn boots to begin with. The scene is ridiculous, but I was ready to let it go, until the SECOND soldier arrives! You see, he finds the previous soldier's SUPER worn boots and notices – get ready, cause here it comes – that his boots are SUPER DUPER worn boots! Lucky man, he picks up the SUPER worn boots and leaves his SUPER DUPER worn boots behind. But you see, that's not all – because the THIRD soldier then arrives! He finds the previous soldiers SUPER DUPER worn boots and inspects them, along with his own SUPER DUPER worn boots. Since both pairs suck, he tosses them both aside and smiles as he continues barefoot. At this point I was ready to throw my television through my living room window. The heavy handedness, overdramaticism, and paramount absurdity of this sequence is beyond bad film-making. It's SUPER DUPER bad film-making.There are a number of similar, completely stupid moments to be had. Like the time when the lead character asks someone, "Hey, are you dead?" Like the guy is going to answer "Yes" if he actually kicked the bucket. I'll also be the first to condemn the subpar performance of the lead actor, who is the quintessential posterchild for artificial reaction. I laughed hard during that opening head slap where his head slingshot back in place with this stupid, goofy expression on his face.The fact that this trivial fluff piece gets an IMDb average rating of 8.4 while a certifiable masterpiece like "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003) only gets a 7.5 is the height of mass stupidity. And to think that some people actually delude themselves into thinking that "AToTS" doesn't make sense. Well, not every movie can have completely outrageous SUPER DUPER worn boots on its side.

A harrowing masterpiece on the sheer madness and despair of war, Fires on the Plain (Nobi) is not going to be to everybody's taste: this is a war movie in the truest possible sense of the term, one that resorts neither to flag-waving patriotism nor saccharine sentimentality. Nobi cuts deep, it's ugly, tenebrous and bleak as few things ever committed on celluloid will ever be. This is war behind the cannons, with no triumphs or heroes, no moral victories or defeats to be had, just a handful of gaunt and terrible-looking men strewn across a land ravaged by war like penitents fleeing a great disaster. The characters defy moral judgment because they are creatures beset by a great woe, a woe that does not permit questions of a moral nature. War and survival. Pitting one's will against the other's in a battlefield arena. The loser is simply removed from existence.Tamura, soldier in the Japanese Imperial army, is discharged from his platoon and ordered to report in a nearby hospital on account of him coughing blood and being disliked by the rest of the platoon. He's told to never come back and instead commit suicide by hand grenade in case the hospital rejects him. Which it does. The hospital is nothing but a shack made of wooden planks and the hospital surgeon simply tells him that if he's capable of walking he's just fine. It is in that shabby excuse of a hospital that one of the most harrowing scenes of the film takes place. As the area is carpet bombed by American planes the doctors and those who can walk and sustain themselves flee from the hospital and into the woods. Moments before the hospital is blown to pieces, the gaunt and crippled figures of the sick and injured crawl out of it in every manner of posture, dressed in their sickly white robes, as if the building is some kind of beast spewing viscera and filth out upon the earth.That is Nobi's greatest success; the stark and brooding depiction of the suffering of war in simple but evocative images, without melodrama or pseudo-heroism. Soldiers cross a marsh, wading knee-deep in mud, move across the opposite bank and into a field only to discover enemy tanks hiding in the woods, their lights shining like malignant eyes as they scan the dark. A procession of injured soldiers, dirty and half-mad, crossing a road, dropping to the ground on the sound of enemy planes. Buzzards feasting on a pile of dead bodies. An abandoned village. A mad soldier that believes himself to be Buddha sitting under a tree, covered with flies and his own excrement, offering his arm to be eaten by Tamura when he's dead. These are the images Kon Ichikawa conjures for our eyes, merciless and unflinching in their poignancy but honest and raw.Nobi doesn't rush to get somewhere. It is content to follow Tamura's travels through the war-torn land as he tries to reach the regrouping center of Palompa, and observe the madness and obscenities of war. The movie wades through the sludge of the horror of war, slow and brooding, just like the characters it follows. The final thirty minutes with Tamura taking refuge with two deserters who feed on 'monkey meat' are the closest Nobi comes to adhering to conventional narratives and they're no less powerful for that matter. Strikingly photographed in black and white, with great performances from the cast, and Ichikawa's assured direction, Nobi is not only among the best war movies to be made but also among the finest of Japanese cinema.

I got this movie out a week after the death of Ichikawa Kon - I suppose if there is one way to mark the passing of a great director, its to raise a glass of wine to him while watching one of his greatest movies. Ichikawa had one of the finest careers in Japanese film, but as he never had a distinctive style or theme he often seems to be overlooked compared to his near contemporaries such as Ozu and Kurosawa (he was a little younger than them, but not by much). He is one of those directors who defies auteur theories - its likely that his wife (who wrote the screenplay for this and many other of his movies) was as much responsible for the quality of the movies as he was. But at his best, he was as good as any Japanese film maker at the time. In particular, he had great technical skills, allowing him to tell complex stories in an accessible manner. But in terms of theme, this movie could hardly be simpler - war is hell. No really, its seriously hell.Fire on the Plain doesn't follow the normal war genre rules. There is no real beginning - we start as the wretched Tamura, who is a regular private (although it is implied he is more thoughtful and educated than most of the others - at one stage it is shown he understands English, but he clams up when the others ask him how he knows it) is ordered to hospital, as his unit is already in an appalling state. The soldiers are defeated and starving to death. They are no longer an army, just a rag bag group of refugees - hunted by the locals, and pretty much ignored by the Americans, who have bigger fish to fry. Hunger and despair is driving the soldiers to the edge and beyond of madness.In typical Ichikawa style, its not all just grim - its oddly funny in parts (a very black humour of course).The high points of this movie to me are the outstanding performances from the leads and the vivid photography. The characters, in all their humanity, but also their complete loss of humanity, are all too believable. This is that rare film - one which will refuse to erase itself from your head, even if you want to forget it.