L'ange rouge

Akai Tenshi, the movie starring Ayako Wakao where she impersonates a comfort woman...errrr, a nurse who helps japanese soldiers by making sex with them for no real discernible reason and then feels bad for them dying or killing themselves again for no real reason. Oh, did I mention the fact that she magically falls in love with a surgeon with whom she doesn't show any chemistry whatsoever? This movie feels more like an exploitation flick where somebody imposed to the director to not show the actual sex scenes, resulting in something extremely bizzarre at the end of the day. Having enjoyed a lot of the works of this director and especially the feminist-leaning A Wife Confesses made five years prior to this thing, I am shocked and infuriated that he produced this crap. Well shot crap, but crap nonetheless. I might try to rewatch it in the future, but it's not on the priority list.

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.

Sakura Nishi is a new Japanese nurse when she arrives at an army hospital in China during the war in 1939. She quickly encounters the reality of war and the types of physical and mental injuries inflicted along with the medical staff and soldiers she meets.

This is a very dark drama although it lightens the mood for a couple of scenes. There is a definite feeling of realism. It does not pull any punches regarding the realism including some gruesome and violent episodes. Not for the squeamish.

Director Yasuzo Masumura is a legend in Japanese cinema and this is an example of his brilliant filmmaking. The cast is all first-rate. Ayako Wakao who plays Nurse Nishi is outstanding as usual, one of my favorite actresses and is totally believable in this role adding to the realism. Shinsuke Ashida plays Dr. Okabe and was perfect in the role.

I really hate to rate a movie 10 out of 10 but I can't say a single minute of this film was uninteresting. I did feel I had to catch my breath when it was over as it hits very hard. You don't have to be a fan of Japanese movies to watch. It is just that good.

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.

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.