Nuda per un pugno di eroi

Coming from the point of view of the country at risk of losing the war and tinged with a sense of fatalism, this is the kind of story which could've been wall to wall misery porn if the wrong director were put in charge of it. Fortunately, its emotional register turned out to be far more oblique than I expected it would. The portrayals of the characters finding solace from their desperate situations by getting as much out of their relationships with each other as possible resonated really well with me. Though you might not be able to control your fate, the least you can do is attempt to alleviate your fears of meeting it. This aspect isn't glossed over, nor does it overshadow the depressing parts of the film. The film instead does a good job at balancing hope and despair. Even the Stockholm syndrome bits don't feel problematic since the desperation of the characters are made as clear as day.

Extremely tough little b/w gem from director, Masumura. It's 1939 and the Japanese are fighting in China, to not very much effect. We follow the efforts of those in field hospitals desperately trying to pick up the pieces when each load of war injured is raced back from the front line. Limbs are sawn off and bullets removed, all without aesthetic but plenty of blood and screams. Amid it all our heroine struggles to recover from her early rape by patients and the requests of the desperate and dying. This movie is so well put together that it is only afterwards you wonder just how that scene where she allows the handless man to feel her with his feet or make her senior a 'man again', without it seeming incongruous within this tale of death and destruction. With the blatant misogynism, nudity, explicit surgery, bondage, drug taking and even cross dressing, not to mention the inherent criticism of the Japanese stance, it is a wonder this film got made, distributed and survived. Important and enthralling film.

This is the story of Nurse Sakura Nishi, who is a young army nurse sent to field hospitals in China during the Sino-Japanese war. There she sees the atrocities of war, sometimes by her own people. She has a conscience (after being raped, she reports it and that soldier Sakamoto goes back to the front. Not much later, he is wounded and she tries to save his life. It is a great scene). There are amputations at will in these makeshift hospitals at the request of Dr. Okabe, whom Nurse Nishi falls in love with. That is perfectly believable, this is a time of war. Ayako Wakao, who is a great actress, plays Nurse Nishi perfectly. Her expressions at seeing all this brutality, her reactions to it are all true to life. You can only wonder what it was like to be there, she shows you. Not for the faint of heart of course, this film is grim but very gripping. Shot in glorious black and white, it depicts the horrors of war with a little light (Nurse Nishi) for all who have experienced it. Brutal but essential.

A very underrated masterful piece of art. This is my kind of film. It analyses, dissect, and expose the human psyche. There is no good and bad in the film, you make up your mind about that. There is no unblemished hero character in the film; only ordinary people doing extraordinary actions in unique circumstances. The film illustrates the beauty of human heart. Even though the film is Japanese, it doesn't do what the traditional Hollywood films do in war films involving America; the film, in respect of the war issue is neutral. It uses the war as a background to the main concepts addressed by the film. However, the war aspect is not entirely neglected, rather it is dealt with from a neutral perspectives.

Red Angel is a very interesting and strange movie which could make the staunchest warmonger into a pacifist with bloody sights that might delight Mexican/American director Robert Rodriguez. A beautiful, sensual nurse named Nishi battles the 1939 war in China and her own repulsion to its inhuman violence by making love to an amputee and falling in love with a drug-addicted doctor. Be ready for the screams of surgery with no anesthetic and the sight of saws being used to cut off limbs. A little soft core, a lot of action, enough blood to make you happy the film is in black and white. Still . . . it's always worthwhile to take a look at the world through another culture's eyes.