is a 1956 Japanese drama film directed by
Kon Ichikawa
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary ''Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won t ...
. Based on a children's
novel of the same name written by
Michio Takeyama, it tells the story of Japanese soldiers who fought in the
Burma Campaign during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. A member of the group goes missing after the war, and the soldiers hope to uncover whether their friend survived, and if he is the same person as a
Buddhist monk they see playing a harp. The film was among the first to show the losses of the war from a Japanese soldier's perspective.
The film was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
of 1956. In 1985, Ichikawa remade ''The Burmese Harp'' in color with a new cast, and
the remake was a major box office success, becoming the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in 1985 and the second largest Japanese box office hit up to that time.
Plot
Private Mizushima, a Japanese soldier, becomes the
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
(or ''
saung
The ''saung'' ( Burmese: စောင်း, MLCTS caung: ; also known as the ''saung-gauk'' ( စောင်းကောက်), Burmese harp, Burma harp, or Myanmar harp), is an arched harp used in traditional Burmese music. The saung is re ...
'') player of Captain Inouye's group, composed of soldiers who fight and sing to raise morale in the World War II
Burma Campaign. When they are offered shelter in a village, they eventually realize they are being watched by
British and Indian soldiers. They retrieve their ammunition, then see the advancing force. Captain Inouye tells the men to sing, laugh and clap, to give the British the impression that they are unaware of their presence. Instead of firing at them, though, the British soldiers begin singing the same melody, "
Home! Sweet Home!
"Home, Sweet Home" is a song adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera ''Clari, or the Maid of Milan'', the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by Payne. Bishop had earlier pub ...
". Inouye's men learn that the war has ended with the
Japanese surrender
The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...
, and so they surrender to the British.
At a camp, a British captain asks Mizushima to talk down a group of soldiers who are still fighting on a mountain. He agrees to do so and is told by the captain that he has 30 minutes to convince them to surrender. At the mountain, he is almost shot by the hold-out soldiers before they realize he is Japanese. He climbs up to the cave and informs their commander that the war has ended and they should surrender. The commander confers with the other soldiers, and they unanimously decide to fight to the end. Mizushima begs for them to surrender but they do nothing. He decides to ask for more time from the British, but when he creates a surrender flag, the others take it the wrong way and believe he is surrendering for them. They beat him unconscious and leave him on the floor. The cave is bombarded and Mizushima is the only survivor.
Mizushima is helped to recover from his injuries by a
monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
. One day, Mizushima steals the monk's robe and shaves his head so that he will not be spotted as a soldier. He begins a journey to the camp in
Mudon where his comrades were sent. Finding many corpses of dead Japanese soldiers along the way, he decides to bury them.
Captain Inouye and his men are wondering what happened and cling to a belief that Mizushima is still alive. Eventually, they buy a
parrot
Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoid ...
and teach it to say "Mizushima, let's go back to Japan together". They have an old woman villager take it to a monk they suspect is Mizushima in hiding. She returns the next day with another parrot that says "No, I cannot go back". She also gives the captain a letter, that explains that Mizushima has decided not to go back to Japan with them, because he must continue burying the dead while studying as a monk and promoting the peaceful nature of mankind. He states in the letter that if he finishes burying all the fallen soldiers' bodies, then he may return to Japan.
Cast
![Rentarō Mikuni](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Rentar%C5%8D_Mikuni.jpg)
*
Rentarō Mikuni
(also sometimes credited as 三国連太郎) (January 20, 1923 – April 14, 2013) was a Japanese film actor from Gunma Prefecture. He appeared in over 150 films since making his screen debut in 1951, and won three Japanese Academy Awards for ...
as Captain Inouye (
Nihongo
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been m ...
: 陸軍大尉井上, ''Rikugun-Tai-i Inoue'')
*
Shoji Yasui as PFC. Mizushima (
Nihongo
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been m ...
: 水島一等兵, ''Mizushima Ittōhei'')
*
Jun Hamamura
was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1938 and 1995.
Selected filmography
* ''Wolf'' (1955)
* '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956)
* '' The Hole'' (1957)
* ''The Temptress and the Monk'' (1958)
* ''Enjō'' (1958)
* ''Odd Obs ...
as Pvt. Ito (
Nihongo
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been m ...
: 伊藤二等兵, ''Itō Nitōhei'')
*
Taketoshi Naito
was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 70 films between 1953 and 2003. He died of lymphoma on 21 August 2012.
Selected filmography Film
* ''Mahiru no ankoku'' (1956)
* ''An Actress'' (1956) - Akio Satomi
* '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) - ...
as Pvt. Kobayashi (
Nihongo
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been m ...
: 小林二等兵, ''Kobayashi Nitōhei'')
*
Kō Nishimura
was a Japanese actor who appeared in supporting roles in such films as Akira Kurosawa's ''The Bad Sleep Well'' and '' Yojimbo'', Kihachi Okamoto's ''Sword of Doom'', Yoshitaro Nomura's ''Zero Focus'', and Kon Ichikawa's '' The Burmese Harp'' ( ...
as Baba (as Akira Nishimura)
Production
Development
Michio Takeyama's novel ''
The Burmese Harp'' was popular, and director
Kon Ichikawa
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary ''Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won t ...
was intrigued by the narrative, but was more interested in transforming the
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
tone to a realistic film, and secured Takeyama's permission.
Ichikawa likened his desire to make the film to "a call from the heavens".
Ichikawa met with Takeyama to discuss the story, and was surprised when Takeyama revealed he had never been to Burma, having fought in China during the war. Takeyama explained he planned to write about China, but the music he referenced in his story was not commonly found there.
For a screenplay, Ichikawa turned to his wife
Natto Wada, who wrote it alone and at a fast pace, but based on her husband's concepts.
Filming
Ichikawa hoped to make the film in color, but color cameras were too big, and thus costly, to be moved to Burma. Much of the film was shot in Yasui,
Hakone
is a List of towns in Japan, town in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had a population of 11,293 and a population density of 122 persons per km². The total area of the town is . The town is a popular tourist destination due to its many o ...
and the
Izu Peninsula in Japan.
Ichikawa rigorously followed his storyboards in shooting the film. Ichikawa also told
Shoji Yasui to lose weight to portray the underfed character.
The harp featured in the film is a
prop
A prop, formally known as (theatrical) property, is an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinc ...
, rather than a true instrument, with the song used in the film being "
Home! Sweet Home!
"Home, Sweet Home" is a song adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera ''Clari, or the Maid of Milan'', the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by Payne. Bishop had earlier pub ...
", adapted in Japan as "Hanyo no yado".
Themes
![Twin Temples (8401507778)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Twin_Temples_%288401507778%29.jpg)
Buddhism is a major theme in the film, with a monk saying "Burma is
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
's country."
Author Catherine Russell writes that Mizushima, initially stealing a monk's robes and disingenuously posing as a Buddhist monk, becomes more devout. However, Russell argues that Mizushima's Buddhism, in his salute of graves and use of distinctly Japanese boxes, remains a form of
Japanese nationalism
is a form of nationalism that asserts the belief that the Japanese are a monolithic nation with a single immutable culture, and promotes the cultural unity of the Japanese. Over the last two centuries, it has encompassed a broad range of ideas a ...
. Professor Ronald Green argues that Mizushima's mission as a monk to bury Japanese soldiers is a pilgrimage, in which his mounds resemble Buddhist
stupa
A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as ''śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation.
In Buddhism, circumamb ...
s, and his practice of saluting the graves is reminiscent of Buddhist rituals at stupas. The film's visuals also communicate Buddhist messages, with the panoramas in land, and then the ocean at the end of the film, showing the "broadness" of Mizushima's messages. Shots of
full moon
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic coordinate system, ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon opp ...
s invoke Buddhist symbols of awakening.
Music is also used in the film to represent the unity between cultural groups and enemies. Singing improves the spirits in Inouye's group, with Inouye trained in music while Mizushima is self-taught in the Burmese harp, an instrument particularly associated with Burma. The group learns the war is over when Mizushima plays "Hanyo no yado", with the British joining in by singing "Home! Sweet Home!"
Release
In Japan,
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...
, the studio that commissioned the film, released the first part of the film on 21 January 1956, running 63 minutes. The second part, running 80 minutes, was released on 12 February, with both parts as
double feature
The double feature is a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.
Opera use
Opera ho ...
s screened with
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
s.
It was screened at the
Venice International Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...
in August 1956, where it received an ovation.
It was Ichikawa's first film released internationally, but the 143-minute film was condensed to 116 minutes, reputedly at Ichikawa's objection.
Its release in
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
countries came before the novel was first translated to English.
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
in
Region 1 by
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
in March 2007.
Reception
Critical reception
The film's initial release was met with positive reviews.
In 1993, film scholar
Audie Bock
Audie Elizabeth Bock (born October 15, 1946) is an American film scholar and politician who served in the California State Assembly from 1999 to 2000, and was elected to the Sarasota County, Florida Soil and Water Conservation District in 2018.
S ...
praised Ichikawa's use of "the
Burmese landscape and the eerie power of its Buddhist statuary and architecture to sustain the mood of Mizushima's conversion and the mystification of his Japanese comrades." Bock also emphasized the friendship between the soldiers. In 1996, Kevin Thomas of ''
The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' hailed it as "one of the great anti-war films".
In 2002, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
commented ''The Burmese Harp'' was "one of the first films to portray the decimating effects of World War II from the point of view of the
". In 2007,
'' that despite appearing sentimental, the film "has a clarity of purpose and a simplicity of execution that make it still appealing".
called it the "first real landmark in his career". He wrote it would be impossible for Ichikawa to know about the scale of
soldiers inflicted in countries such as Burma, with academic Joan Mellen accusing the film of whitewashing. However, Rayns noted the film shows some Japanese soldiers were indeed extremists.
Dr. John Henry Smihula further argued the quote "Burma is Buddha's country" could mean that
is at the root of the suffering of all characters in the film, as Burma belongs only to Buddha and neither Japan nor Britain.
gave the film three and a half stars, calling it an "extraordinary antiwar drama".
'' includes a scene with cannibals in the war. Although this is not adapted in the film, Ichikawa explored the topic in his 1959 film ''
''.
Both films are noted for being rare in Japanese cinema for focusing on the dark nature of the
.
was a major financial success and was the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in 1985.
It drew an audience of 3.87 million people, then the second largest Japanese box office hit.