This extraordinary anti-war film depicts the devastating consequences of World War II from the perspective of the Japanese army. Director Kon Ichikawa introduces the central themes of humility and the importance of compassion with transparency of intentions concerning the obligations to survive humanely during horrible circumstances and conditions.

It tells of Mizushima, a Japanese soldier during the closing days of the conflict and also the final skirmishes fought during the Burma campaign, and the central portion of the narrative is set in motion when he fails to get his countrymen to surrender to allied forces in a war which they've already lost. He becomes injured and is nursed back to health by a bhikkhu and ultimately adopts the Buddhist doctrines…

The soil of Burma is red, and so are its rocks...

Biruma no Tategoto was based on a book by the author Michio Takeyama specifically designed to introduce children to the fundamental principles of Buddhism. Regardless of that, the story has a universal appeal, having an empathetic message of humanism just like the post-war Japanese films had, including Masaki Kobayashi.

Ichikawa's adaptation intentions of this emotionally powerful story are, in my humble opinion, two:

I. The first innert protagonist to play a role is music. Music, as any other art form including cinema, is an exteriorization of the contents of the soul. It is through art that we unravel the most meaningful content of life, and most importantly, of us.…

Over the years I was afraid to watch this, because growing up The Burmese Harp is a very popular foreign movie here and that is because the story takes place in my country, our traditional instrument plays a vital role in the picture, and for those two facts alone many people simply seem to have loved the movie. Watching the movie today I must admit that I too am maybe more sentimental with this movie than I would feel toward most movies. But at the center of the Burmese Harp there is a beautiful and poignant story that is set near the end of World War II, wherein a Japanese solider is starting to embrace the life as a Buddhist…

The quote: 'The Soil of Burma is Red, and So are Its Rocks.' bookends this poetic meditation on suffering and manages to conjure up the image of war ravaged landscape, with the sun casting a crimson hue as it reflects the blood spilled below.

Mizushima is a man who's empathy knows no bounds and even before his spiritual journey begins, his gentle soul is expressed so vividly by the way he picks the strings of his harp as he accompanies his brothers in arms in their choral exultation amongst the fire of murderous artillery. The separation that occurs between Mizushima and his military outfit happens after a key turning point where a Japanese military patrol refuses to lay down arms…

Rebirth through war and finding eternal peace through the burial of the dead. A man's touch with death to regain life on a pilgrimage throughout a foreign and scavenged land where corpses litter the fields and beaches. He searches for hope and survival but instead gains something even greater, a purpose.

The Burmese Harp is a prime example of emotional affliction within a film. The type of reverence that commands the viewer and speaks to their soul. It is what puts the medium of film on par with all of the other classical arts. Kon Ichikawa crafts a war film unlike any other film about war. This is due to the main themes of the film detailing peace after post-war…

The Japanese were on fire in the 1950's, so many incredible films and I can't help but feel like I've only scratched the surface.

The Burmese Harp is another very emotional movie and it's also quite interesting in the fact that music is often used to drive events forward. It tells the story of Mizushima, a solider and harp player, and his unit during the events leading up to and after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II. After a solo mission doesn't go as planned, Mizushima finds himself torn between loyalty to his unit and what he feels is his duty to provide peace to fallen comrades that are scattered all over Burma.

The story regularly…

Once you walk away from war, its hard to ever go back....
----------------------

As WWII comes to an end, a group of Japanese soldiers are stranded and waiting for the go to get back into Japan. Meanwhile, Mizushima, a soldier who's all about playing his harp and isn't really into war finds a way to escape and find peace after he fails to make another group of Japanese to give up.

One of the things that I love right away was the fact I get a glimpse into the final days of WWII through the eyes of someone that wasn't American or white for that matter. Japanese all have been painted in a very awful way on all these movies,…

Very few films leave you truly staggered and deeply affected at a profoundly personal level, the last one to do that to me was probably Michael Haneke's Amour many months back.

Kon Ichikawa's anti-war film plays out like a lyrical poem, a moving canvas of humanity and inhumanity played out against the backdrop of second world war Burma, with the Japanese having already surrendered before we join the platoon in which the central character Mizushima is with. The narrative cleverly switches perspective between Mizushima after he leaves on his journey and the remaining soldiers, highlighting a sort of dualism between the individual and the collective. Mizushima, having witnessed the horrors of war first hand, wishes to stay behind to make…

Die Genres Musical und Kriegsfilm sind eine ungewöhnliche Paarung und obwohl The Burmese Harp kein klassisches Musical ist, erzählt es viel von seiner Geschichte über die Musik. Das der Einsatz der Musik in diesem Setting nicht unpassend wirkt und die humanistische Aussage des Films wunderbar unterstützt, ist eine Leistung die ich The Burmese Harp hoch anrechne.

Der 2. Weltkrieg ist vorbei. Japan hat kapituliert. Die Einheit rund um Captain Inouye erfährt in Burma von der Niederlage. Der Soldat Mizushima soll daraufhin eine andere japanische Einheit, die sich auf einem Berg verschanzt hat zum Aufgeben bewegen. Was Mizushima dort und auf seiner Reise durch Burma erlebt, wird ihn tief erschüttern...

Gesang verbindet Menschen, Musik ist universell und so bietet The Burmese…

A fantastic war film and truly a classic of Japan's golden age of cinema, The Burmese Harp features a company of Japanese soldiers at the end of the Second World War in Burma. One of them, a harp player by the name of Mizushima, is given the mission to go to a last holdout of Japanese soldiers who refuse to surrender to the British. However, they continue to refuse despite Mizushima's pleading and they are all killed, and Mizushima is believed to be dead as well by his company.

Rentaro Mikuni, recognisable for his role as one of the major villains in Harakiri, plays Captain Inouye in this (the leader of the company of soldiers). This character is just as…

A war film with no war and no histrionics, just the aftermath--bodies and skulls strewn across hillsides and beaches and soldiers' tears and messenger parrots. My kind of war movie has less soldiers and more solitary monks--or imposter monks--wandering through gorgeous black and white landscapes. And, of course, parrots.

There's a musical moment that got me, probably more because I've got sentimental attachments to barbed wire. I teared up right along with those soldiers, but I did not cry because I'm more of a manly man than these soldiers. And that moment followed another where a soldier said (and I paraphrase) "Now he's got two parrots on his shoulder" that nearly made me chuckle but not quite because I'm less…