Watch Under the Flag of the Rising Sun For Free

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Blistering performances.

Director Fukasaku is best known for his cult classic Battle Royale, as well as numerous yakuza flicks from the '70s. Under the Flag of the Rising Sun is really the film he should best be known for. He produced it independently, and it's easily his most prestigious and all-around exceptional film. It's a WWII movie, made from the perspective of a quarter century later. Sachiko Hidari stars as a war widow in 1971 who is still trying to get benefits from the government, as well as restore her husband's honor. He was supposedly executed in the waning days of the war, but any further information has disappeared. To find the truth, she begins searching for veterans who may have known her husband. She interviews several witnesses who give her a conflicting story of her husband, but a pretty vivid picture of what it might have been like to be a soldier fighting in the New Guinea front. The film isn't exploitative, but it can be explicitly violent (most of the flashbacks are in black and white up until the violence starts - Fukasaku does not want the audience to be separate from that). Under the Flag of the Rising Sun is one of the most unflinching of all the great Japanese WWII films. You really feel the pain that still exists in the early '70s. The sequences with the war veteran teacher, watching over his students who have grown up after the war and are completely innocent of it, are especially gut-wrenching. I also loved the performance of Noboru Mitani, best known for playing the irresponsible homeless father in Kurosawa's Dodeskaden, who plays a veteran with a dark secret.

"Under the Flag of the Rising Sun" or "Gunki hatameku motoni" is a film by Kinji Fukasaku, a Japanese director renown for his work in the crime and 'chambara' film genres. This film was made by the director amid a streak of Yakuza-oriented films and shares some of the same filming style characteristic of his other films, detailed and somber character portraits, sudden outbursts of intentionally ugly and clumsy violence, intimate romantic relationships which end tragically or abruptly, and protagonists who have trouble compromising their own moral integrity to fit in with changing social hierarchies.The main protagonist of this film is a Japanese war widow attempting to find out the actual events behind her husband's disappearance from his military station in New Guinea. After the war, Sakie Togashi never received a pension for her husband's military service because Sergeant Togashi was apparently court-martialed, but no official details are disclosed to her by social services or government offices for twenty years after his disappearance. Feeling sorry for her, several social workers give her the names of four men from her husband's platoon who returned to Japan after the war.The film mixes the present-day (1970s) settings and quest of Sakie Togashi with various flashbacks involving her husband and the company members on New Guinea. This is interspersed with old war footage and photographs from the Pacific Theater. The more chaotic or violent scenes are often filmed in the manner of many action films from the early 1970s, with chopped, slow-motion effects and caustic drawn-out sounds.Under the Flag of the Rising Sun is reminiscent of other important films (Rashomon, Jacob's Ladder, The Deer Hunter, The Human Condition) about the aftereffects of 20th century war on the human psyche, family and social networks, and the common people who end up fighting for their country. There are some good quotes from some of the retired soldiers, such as "people from the bottom of the heap never rest in peace," implying that individuals who occupy the less influential rungs of society are constantly manipulated by those in positions of power. It is a unique film for a Japanese filmmaker, in a country rarely known to recant its actions during World War II.

What's the truth,and what does it bring us ? That's the question what carries this movie up to a level of masterpiece. I will not say that this IS a masterpiece since it also has it flaws, but to come to the plot of this movie, it is about a war widow (Sachiko Hidari) which seeks out the ministry of welfare, in order to clear her late husbands name (who was a sergeant in the war)from the name of "desertor". For almost 20 years she is trying to get some answer on her late husbands strange death, and in 1971, when the head of the department of ministry of Welfare changes, she tries it again. (like every year) The man, just like his predecessors, can't clear her husbands name, however feeling sorry for her, gives her a list of 4 names who didn't respond on the inquiry of her husbands death, so she can seek out the truth herself.This is where the problem starts, for all 4 men ( 1 first class private, a corporal, a military police officer, and a 2nd grade lieutenant) tell her 4 different story's about her late husbands death. The only questions is who is right, and who lies, and as last who simply doesn't know. All the men state at first (which is remarkable) that they simply don't recall much from that time, and apart from from that the military records are not complete, so the widow will never have any prove of the story on how her husband died. This is an interesting factor which shows that even in this movie, Japan still can not deal with it's history.Back to the movie itself and the review. Sachiko Hidari who plays the widow does a good job on the leading lady here, for her desperation doesn't seem unreal, however sometimes a little overacted. In my opinion it is Tetsuro Tamba who plays the role of one of the returned soldiers from the war who deserves the most credit. He plays the first soldier (private first class) who lives in a dump, between tramps an beggars, and his image of this soldiers who cannibalized on his fellow soldiers is so haunting that it doesn't leave the mind. After his deed of feeding on their flesh because of starvation, he returns in the slums of Tokyo feeling secure, among the chaos. But when Japan cleans up he feels left behind, he feels still dirty (and guilty) and decides to live among the slums in a back alley ghetto dump (very ironic as a PIG farmer). Of the four war witnesses, he is the strongest representation of the carnage pf chaos of it, but that doesn't mean the other 3 are just loose sand. The power of this picture lies in the story's of these 4 men who will tell you about the horrors of that war.Fukasaku Kinji (Battle Royal, the Geisha House, Fall Guy) has made a very interesting documentary of war, crafted in the form of a motion picture. The film is in color but the flashbacks upon what happened to Sachiko Hidari husband are all in monochrome black and white (except for the strongest shots which switch over into color. Together with some freezing time frames, and b/w picture of the war and holocaust, this picture is trying to make clear that war IS nothing but chaos. Fukasaku's direction is good, however, as said, he is victimizing the wrong group in my eyes. I is understandable as Japanese that he does this, but it doesn't make it right. I don't want to me a moralist, but this is something that Japans just keeps denying (and it affects me for my roots are German, and we confessed to all of the war crimes, but through the incident with the atomic bomb, Japan got away with the victim label) Back to the theme, the pictures of holocaust don't shock anymore, as much as they might have in 1972. (for all those who have seen the war pictures and tapes of Europe from the second world war), but still they leave behind a strong impression on how brutal, and more important how REAL this was. This isn't fiction, it is very much real, and there is still a rather unbelief to what humans are capable of. This films doesn't deny anything from it's image that is inhuman. it shows you the torture (although only of Japanese people, there is only 1 foreigner that get's killed here openly before the camera) of soldiers, the cannibalism, the vermin, the blood lust of officers, the madness, and the chaotic structure. What is left behind are the feeling of fear, you can see it in all the 4 men who are left behind to tell the tale of it.This movie is not an action flick in the sense of "saving private Ryan" or "Pearl Harbour". This is a slow (or more slower) movie that has it's power in the story it has to say. The camera actions (the image)of the picture is not that new or uncommon, but it hits the nerve of the open wound. To be more precise the story fits the image that Fukasaku shows you.What also was a relieve that this picture didn't care much for heroism that Hollywood filmmakers give their pieces a lot of times, no it's shows us how low people can get if it comes to survive. For anyone who goes beyond Hollywood cinema joy, and a nice night at the movies, an interesting piece to watch, and if it was only to hear the story from A. the Japanese side, and B. the hear a second world war tale which isn't about Nazis Europe, Americans or Germans.

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.