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If you are thinking of watching this, you need to know what your are getting into first. This is a violent movie, in the extreme.

I do not ordinarily watch violent movies. But I am glad I watched this one, even though I had to turn away a few times. The subject matter is about violence, and the director pulls no punches.

It is so easy to romanticize war, either in victory or defeat. This movie clearly has a message for the Japanese people about WWII that the director intends them never to forget. That it was received so well, speaks well of the Japanese people's honesty. And it has a message for her Asian neighbors who suffered at the hands of Japanese soldiers, that perhaps hate is no longer appropriate.

Viewing it as an American, I was struck by how different the image is from that of the well-disciplined soldier presented almost as a polite stereotype in Hollywood movies. An American director could not have gotten away with such a movie. However, I can't help wondering if this is perhaps not exactly a representative view of what Japanese soldiers went through.

The movie is told very effectively through its plot, following the inquiries of the war widow into the death of her husband. As the truth comes out, it hits you in the gut much as it would have hit this widow.

At the same time, the director apparently did not intend for this film to be viewed too narrowly as an antiwar movie. It is not just about war, and it is not just about Japanese soldiers, it is about human beings, and what any of us might do in similar circumstances.

I'm a fan of Fukasaku's gritty doomed gangster movies, and have come to expect a harrowing exposition of human frailty and self destruction, usually at a very personal level. However, this movie plays out on a much grander scale as it sets about exploring the nature of nationalism, militarism, obedience, subjective reality, repressed memory, and guilt. I'm hard pressed to think of a western movie that digs so deeply into the despair of war widows, or examines their feelings in such minute detail. Technically it's almost a documentary, but personalised by the heroine's relentless quest for the truth.

Far from being a glorious affair full of grand heroism and precision munitions, war is a filthy business conducted at the sharp end by people who have little or nothing to gain by it. At the blunt end, the politicians and generals eat well and live a life of whimsical luxury while their forces starve and die brutally in foul conditions. Odd that so few filmmakers choose to explore the madness that sends millions to their death for overweening greed, imperial insanity, or even a bare faced lie. The Blue Max, Dr. Strangelove, and Oh What a Lovely War, amongst others, have examined the glib lunacy inherent in the equation, but Fukasaku's movie is all the more poignant for its protagonist's middle aged ordinariness.

If someone tells you that Battle Royale is Fukasaku's finest hour, just ask them if they've seen this movie. It's not "easy" to watch, but it's educational and moving. Try it with rice instead of popcorn.

This film puts most war movies to shame. Here is a cinematically beautiful yet shockingly realistic depiction of what war is like. The betrayal of humanity involved on numerous levels is juxtaposed with the individual soldier's will to survive and with one widow's need to know the hidden truth about how her husband died. Her journey of naivete to knowledge and understanding is the central character arc that traverses through the accounts of several veterans from her husband's unit. The gorgeous photography features shot after shot of beautiful landscape that serves as a kind of silent and solitary witness to the mayhem.

Nowhere do you see the cloying sentimentality and heroism that stink up so many war films. I give it the highest rating.

Searing indictment of war and the individuals discredited in its aftermath. Directed by the masterful Kinji Fukasaku, it is a harsh, bleak work that uses monochrome flashbacks with occasional explosions of color, war photographs, and grim narration to tell a terrible tale.

Sachiko Hidari, a war widow, has spent twenty-six years searching for the truth about her husband's death. Was he executed? Was he a deserter? Was he a hero? As the government adheres to an official, flawed version of events, the stubborn woman seeks her own answers by speaking to the men who served with her husband. The stories told by these damaged soldiers comprise the bulk of the movie and accounts are complicated by each man's "truth".

Exceptionally well acted and directed with a savage determination to depict the insanity of war in its rawest state, this is surely one of Fukasaku's greatest achievements and certainly one of the most honest portraits of homosapien behavior ever branded to celluloid.

First of all I have to say that this film is really tough.

It's a bit like Rashômon. A widow wants to find out the truth about her husband being apparent executed in the Second World War by Japanese soldiers.

But the administration isn't ready to hand out the documents about his dead. So the woman (Hidari Sachiko) tries alone to find out what really happened, by questioning four survivors who knew her husband. And everybody tells a different story (that's why I compare it with Rashômon, although they are set in different sceneries) and they have different opinions about the dead husband. The end turns out to be more horrible than any of you hard-boiled-audition-viewers might expect. Sorry, just kidding. Kinji Fukasaku does its best to disturb the audience. Compared with Battle Royale, Gunki hatameku motoni is much more real and in its way not entertaining at all, what Battle Royale certainly was.

Now here its different. You see real WW2-documental shots mixed with directed scenes. So you never forget what the film is about: Reality. He uses the story of the woman to bring the horror of war to the audience in a rather psychological way. With wanting Hidari Sachiko to know what really happened to her husband, the audience learns a lot more about the terror which reigned the battlefields of New-Guinea. Burned-out, hungry troops, sadistic generals blinded by ultra-nationalism, massacre, torture and finally cannibalism, there's nothing better to expect. There isn't for the audience either.

The movie has no happy end. Its one of the most disturbing and pessimistic films ever made. Mixed with the documentary and the sad fate of the woman, this film is also a fable for the consequences of a war not so long ago. Which is not common in Japan, where it still remains a taboo. So the audience has learned something when the film ends. However, this is how I consider this film. It might be different for other people. My brother watching it with me, was stunned. But some people left the theater as well. I only recommend it to anybody who liked both "Paths of Glory" and "Bullet in the Head" or who is interested in Japanese History and its problems anyway.