Under the Flag of the Rising Sun

Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku is best known for his bold Yakuza gangster films and the ultra-violent, satirical hit Battle Royale, so 1972's Under the Flag of the Rising Sun comes as quite a revelation. It's one of Fukasaku's finest, most personal films, and--as Japanese film scholar Tom Mes observes in an accompanying essay--represents a dramatic departure for the director, while still angrily exploring his dominant theme of post-World War II trauma and its anguished effect on Japanese society. Fukasaku claimed this was the film that crystallized his signature visual style, employing color, black-and-white, freeze-frames, negative images, documentary photographs, and shocking violence to tell the powerful 1970s story of a long-grieving widow (Sachiko Hidari) still struggling to determine the truth behind her husband's court martial and execution on the New Guinea front during the final days of WWII. As she interviews surviving members of her husband's garrison in an effort to clear his name, a Rashomon-like tapestry of conflicting testimony unfolds to form a harrowing collage of wartime atrocity (including a controversial depiction of cannibalism), endurance, and survival by any means necessary. The widow's quest leads to a devastating conclusion that qualifies Under the Flag of the Rising Sun as an unflinching classic, ripe for rediscovery as a searing indictment of war and its long-term emotional aftermath. Fukasaku expert and ace translator/subtitler Linda Hoaglund provides an insightful commentary that will greatly enhance anyone's appreciation for this and other Fukasaku films, including the recently released, splendid boxed set of The Yakuza Papers. Highly recommended. (J. Shannon)