Nichiro senso shori no hishi: Tekichu odan sanbyaku-ri

This feature speaks about a war which was not widely known on screen: I talk about the war between Russia and Japan. It seems to be a very rare item, even written by Akira Korosawa himself. There is a good character study in this film made in the late fifties. The story takes place in the first years of the twentieth centuries and shows us Japanase soldiers geting undercover behind enemy lines. . Beautiful snowy scenery, especially for a black and white feature. The Russian movie industry would not have given such a movie, I speak of the story telling, not the directing; it certainly would have been a kind of propaganda movie. This one is in the pure Japanese tradition.

It's the Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese forces have had a major victory in Manchuria, but they are short on men and supplies. No more will be coming. The American ambassador has offered to broker a victorious peace, but the Japanese need another decisive victory. However, they do not know what lies beyond their lines. They decide to send a small patrol of cavalry out, ordering them to advance far enough to discover where the Russians are and how well supplied. It's a round trip of more than three hundred miles, to Mukden and back, with the Russians in pursuit.

Kazuo Mori directs, as he had before, a movie from a script by Akira Kurosawa, co-written with Hideo Oguni. If the era doesn't sound like Kurosawa's forte, stop and realize his script had been written in 1942, when he was struggling to make the leap from well-regarded Assistant Director, usually under Kajiro Yamamoto, to director. It wouldn't be for another year until he finally made the top spot. For the moment, he was turning out scripts that he hoped would pass the censor. Surely a story about valiant Japanese cavalrymen would turn the trick?

Nope. As directed by Mori, it has a lot of Japanese national pride, a sense of loyalty to the army, soldiers willing to commit hara-kiri lest the mission fail, and lots of snow. Mostly, it's a grand adventure into unknown lands, a voyage extraordinaire that suggests Jules Verne's MICHAEL STROGOFF. Kurosawa would later adapt European classics like Shakespeare and Gorky. It's not much of a stretch to presume he knew Verne.

Michio Takahashi's black-and-white cinematography of men in snowy landscapes is gorgeous. There's also lots of nice stunt riding.