Based on Shohei Ooka’s 1951 novel of the same name, the film, shot in stark black-and-white, strips away the heroism of the usual war movie and the moralism of the typical antiwar movie. (Indie veteran Shinya Tsukamoto made his own, similarly bleak version of “Fires on the Plain,” released in 2014, but had to self-finance the film after unsuccessfully pitching the project to film companies.) “Fires on the Plain” tracks the wanderings of a tubercular Japanese soldier, played by a rail-thin Eiji Funakoshi (who fainted on the set after starving himself for two months to prep for the role) as he struggles to survive during the Japanese army’s retreat from the island of Leyte in the Philippines early in 1945.
Author: Mark Schilling
Published at: 2025-08-19 23:00:00
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