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Fires on the Plain | 
 enlarge | Director: Kon Ichikawa
Actors: Eiji Funakoshi, Mantaro Ushio, Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, Osamu Takizawa, Mickey Curtis
Studio: Homevision
Category: Video
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $5.45
You Save: $24.50 (82%)
New (2) Used (13) from $5.45
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 33404
Format: Black & White, Letterboxed, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), Japanese (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 108
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6302844282
UPC: 037429095935
EAN: 9786302844283
ASIN: 6302844282
Theatrical Release Date: July 25, 1962
Release Date: June 6, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Former library copy with library markings in nice condition! VHS tape looks great and is guaranteed to play perfectly or your money back. Comes in a plastic case (with original slipcase enclosed) that has well protected the tape. Case has minor wear. Looks good!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Timeless and unforgettable, Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain ranks highly among the most potent anti-war films ever made. Freely adapted from the 1952 novel by Shohei Ooka and set on the Japanese-occupied Philippine island of Leyte in February of 1945, the film presents a horrific landscape that instantly conveys the nightmarish conditions that existed during the final days of World War II. With a ghostly pallor, sunken eyes, and a case of tuberculosis that has isolated him from his fellow soldiers, the ragged and desperately hungry Tamura (Eiji Funakoshi) has orders to kill himself with a single grenade if he can't find medical attention at a nearby field hospital. Instead he wanders among stinking corpses, through abandoned villages where feral dogs pounce out of nowhere, and eventually encounters two skeletal comrades who are equally desperate to survive. As each of these men is drawn to an inevitable fate, Ichikawa (in close collaboration with his screenwriter wife Natto Wada) strips away any hint of political ideology, focusing on the physical and emotional devastation of survivors to illustrate, in Ichikawa's words, "a total denial [and a] total negation of war." Nearly 50 years before Clint Eastwood tapped into similar themes in Letters from Iwo Jima, Ichikawa was denouncing war with uncompromising bluntness that included (for the first time in a Japanese film) an acknowledgement that cannibalism occurred amidst other wartime atrocities. (In the film it's an indirect reference, but powerful nonetheless.) The result is a raw and powerful experience that fixes itself in your memory. Criterion's 2007 DVD release includes an informative 2006 video interview with renowned Japanese-film expert Donald Richie, video recollections (from 2005) featuring Ichickawa and actor Mickey Curtis, and a comprehensive booklet essay by film critic Chuck Stephens. --Jeff Shannon
Description
Worthy to stand beside Kon Ichikawa's antiwar masterpiece The Burmese Harp, this chilling film focuses intensely on the brutality of war and man's unwavering passion for life. Separated from his unit at the close of World War II, a Japanese soldier encounters death, starvation, and cannibalism in a Philippine jungle.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 A Ridiculous Portrayal of War October 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This movie is overdramatized and ridiculous. How can a person who has been malnourished have the strength to scramble around evading an enemy force? Try not eating and drinking small amounts of dirty water for a week and see how strong you are at the end of it. If you really want to experience war then get off the couch and go see it for yourself then talk about the evils of war.
 Not brutal to view, at times unconvincing portrayal, but the story is there! September 8, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fires on the Plain, 1959, is the gruesome story of Japanese soldiers during World War II. The film depicts the horrors of war, the psychological torment of survival and mainly cannibalism. Some viewers feel this is brutal, but we are not subjected to anything beyond normal war pictures depicting horrors. Although the real-life story of Japanese wartime is brutal, clearly, by today's movie standards, the film is mild.
Director Kon Ichikawa, Japanese film director, died in February 2008 at 92. His other popular war film was "The Burmese Harp" 1956, which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It appears as if his latest filmmaking was 2006. Ichikawa was compared to Kurosawa, but not quite there. Fires on the Plain takes place in the Phillipine jungle and the wide camera shots are excellent. The subtitles are well placed below the image, thus allowing clear reading, although at times, we are shorted of translation.
After a soldier, Tamura, is rejected by his own army, he is ill with tuberculosis, not worth anything for the army, not sick enough for the hospital, and is sent with potatoes and a hand grenade. He is equipped to either survive, bombing explosions, hunger, thirst, or he can kill himself.
Unconvincing portrayal
Folks, I have seen hundreds of foreign film, including wartime, but the minute I saw the opening scene, the slap across the face, I can't help but notice that I was not going to see great acting! First, the slap was the kind that "clearly misses", contrasting against the sound effect which is that annoying high-pitched slap sound.
The feral dog pounce
This scene, a dog pounces on the soldier, but the viewer can clearly see how a dog was held, then perched out onto the soldier, hardly convincing.
Actors lack character and emotion in the face
Many of the actors, including the main actor, lacked that character in the face. That's all we the viewer need, is that character in the face, the emotions need to bring depth to tell the story. Also, the actors, when trudging along the plains visibly appeared as if they were acting.
Other than the acting scenes, the plot was there, the message about wartime Japan was disturbing!....Review of Videotape. Rizzo
 Gears of war September 5, 2008
Here is the war machine, in violent motion, ready to grind down the pieces of a tattered soul...
There is nothing romanticized or sensationalized here. This is the most monstrously appalling and bleak war movie I have ever seen. It might not have the blatant, visceral gut-punch of MEN BEHIND THE SUN. It doesn't have the startling, gory effects or chaotic frenzy of the opening scene in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Plus BLACK SUN: THE NANKING MASSACRE was most likely plastered with more challenging, brutal, and alarming images.
But FIRES ON THE PLAIN soaks up the emotional wreckage and leaves a sad, hollow void behind. There is a heavy dose of death and desperation that will rattle you to the core. It harnesses some dreadful truths and outright shameful implications that exposes a past that many dare not acknowledge.
It takes place in the Philippines, near the end of WWII. The story focuses on Private Tamura, a Japanese soldier suffering from tuberculosis. He is considered a hindrance to his troops, plus the hospital is already crowded with people in far worse condition than him. Branded an outcast, he embarks on a desolate journey just trying to survive.
This is quite a harrowing character study. It is frightening to think just how low man will plummet when pushed to extreme limits. Heartless murder, theft, betrayal, rape, cannibalism...once our humanity is stripped away, our ruthless nature is depressing.
Director Kon Ichikawa is a master storyteller, not to mention gutsy. Surprisingly, he also injects some clever snippets of humor in here too, which undeniably breathes a certain energy into an otherwise dismal picture. Ichikawa once stated that Walt Disney and Pier Paolo Pasolini were his favorite filmmakers. Both of their influences are prevalent here. Just a bold, beautifully shot B&W film, based on the award-winning '52 novel by Shohei Ooka.
This picture turned me off because it was so real. January 20, 2008
The picture was very well done. I gave it away to a friend because it turned me off because it was so real. If people saw this film there might be less war.
a devatating anti-war film May 20, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This film, long delayed in coming to DVD, is difficult to watch, for it portrays how war dehumanizes those who participate in it, especially if they are unlucky enough to be on the losing side. While hard to watch, it should be watched, especially by those who glorify war and wear their easy and rampant patriotism on their sleeve. The plot follows a Japanese soldier suffering from tuberculosis as he stuggles to survive in a strange country as his unit and his army dissolve into chaos, privation, and, ultimately, cannabalism and death. Beautiflly photographed, with clear, updated subtitles. A must for any serious film buff.
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