Under The Flag Of The Rising Sun (DVD)

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Prolific Japanese filmmaker, Kinji Fukasaku, perhaps reached his most widest audience with 2000's "Battle Royale", a wild movie about high school students forced to kill each other on a remote island (think "Survivor" meets "Lord of the Flies"). Sadly, Fukasaku would pass away from prostate cancer while filming the sequel. His son, Kenta, would complete "Battle Royale IIL Requiem." Fukasaku is certainly more well-known for his Yakuza films of the 70's. His "Yakuza Papers" showed a de-romanticized portrayal of gangsters and their supposed codes of honor. Handheld shots and a documentary feel are the trademarks of those films and their origin can be traced back to "Under the Flag of the Rising Sun."

Based on an award-winning novel by Shoji Yuki, "Under the Flag" follows the tail of a soldier's widow, played by Sachiko Hidari, who was told her husband was executed for desertion and will receive no benefits. Thirty years after the war, she continues to file appeals not so much for the money, but to find out the truth of what happened. On the surface, the premise is similar to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "A Very Long Engagement" (my favorite film of 2004), but Fukasaku's take is far more grittier than Jeunet's fable-like film. However, both at their heart are a love story set amidst the horrors of war.

The film opens up with footage of the Emperor paying honor to the casualties of World War II. This is a continued motif by Fukasaku, who mixes in the characters' flashbacks with actual footage and still photos of the war. The Widow is given the name of four men who served with her husband in the Pacific Theater and have yet to answer inquiries by the Ministry of Defense, whose records of events are shoddy. First, she meets Terajima who lives on a garbage dump on the outskirts of Tokyo. He is the saddest of the bunch, the horrors he witnessed left him afraid to interact with other people. Terajima shuffles about the trash heaps with bugged-out, haunted eyes. Next is Akiba, a stage actor performing an act in which he plays a delusional soldier that believes Japan won WWII. He has a hard time recalling events and sometimes can't remember what's real and what's apart of his act. There is also Ochi, a former MP who tried to drown his memories out with bootleg alcohol, going blind in the process and Ohashi, now a teacher. His poetry lessons are interrupted by the roar of airlines from a nearby airport.

This crashing of peaceful moments occurs quite a bit. The majority of the flashbacks are in black and white, but sometimes either melts into color or abruptly slams into it. Early on, we meet the Widow as she first inquires about her husband's death. The scene dissolves into the present, now in color. Another scene depicts Japanese soldiers surrounding an American prisoner. An officer draws his sword and swings as the scene explodes into color, blood gushing from the American's wounds.