Reikugun

Another of the foreign-language films I had to watch off of my DVR before it expired is a fascinating little Japanese movie called Army.

Intertitles at the beginning of the movie (definitely the English subtitles, although I think the Japanese text says it too) say that the movie was completed in November 1944, and that the movie was sponsored by the Army Ministry of Japan. From the date, this is clearly during World War II, although also a time when the tide of war was turning against Japan. But because it's a country at war, you have to expect there's certain political considerations made. More on that, however, later.

The movie starts off with a brief introductory scene in 1866, which was just before the Meiji era started in Japan, and is in the movie referred to as a time of turmoil. The Takagi family is one is a merchant family of the aspirational class, and their fortunes are at risk because of the warring. But they serve their lord and are rewarded for it.

Fast forward to 1895, which was the time of the first Sino-Japanese War and how the Japanese wound up in control of both Taiwan and the Korean peninsula. Tomohiko Takagi (Chishū Ryū) is a descendant of the family from the first scene, and wants to do his duty for the emperor by serving in the war. He goes off to the military and trains as hard as he can, but unfortunately he's consistently sickly, which means that he can't do any real military duty, which is a matter of great shame. Some time after the war, Tomohiko gets married to Waka (Kinuyo Tanaka), resumes the family business, and eventually has two sons.

The movie goes through this era pretty quickly as well, along with the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and more action during what would be World War I in the west. By this time, Tomohiko and Waka's first kid, Shintaro, is a young boy who's way too sensitive for his own good, something which bothers Tomohiko since he knows you have to be tough to make a good soldier, and dammit, being a good soldier and serving the Emperor is what matters. Heck, Waka says that parents only have custody of their sons until they can hand the adult sons over to the Emperor.

Eventually we get to the early 1930s, when the Japanese attack on Manchuria begins the Asian theater of what would in the west become World War II. Shintaro is about 20 now, which is old enough to take the draft exam and to try to become an officer. That would be a great point of pride for any Japanese family. But is Shintaro fit for such duty?

The synopsis that I've written above already makes it reasonably obvious how the movie has the sort of propaganda that a movie made smack-dab in the middle of a total war would require. More interesting, however, since the movie never reaches the point where Japan is fighting the west in World War II, is the way Army handles those western powers. Already in the opening 1866 scene, there's mention of how Britain and America are trying to destroy Japan. The US is mentioned at several other places as a country that's going to pose real, existential danger to Japan. Perhaps more interesting is how, in one of the scenes mentioning the wars on the Korean peninsula, it's mentioned that foreigners welcomed the Japanese forces, with specific mention made of an Italian family. Italy, of course, was on the Axis side, so not one of the countries fighting against Japan. The final scene also shows that the director, Keisuke Kinoshita, wasn't exactly on board with the war, but had to be subtle about how he presented anything that might go against the Japanese government line.

All of this makes Army a fascinating little movie, and one that I think is surprisingly well made considering what must have been a difficult time for a filmmaker in a country not only at total war, but losing that war.