''Army'' (陸軍 ''Rikugun'') is a 1944 Japanese film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita and starring

Chishū Ryū was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 television productions. Early life Ryū was born in Tamamizu Village, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, the most south ...

and

Kinuyo Tanaka was a Japanese actress and film director. She had a career lasting over 50 years with more than 250 acting credits, but was best known for her 15 films with director Kenji Mizoguchi, such as ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952) and ''Ugetsu'' (1953). W ...

. It is best known for its final scene, which Japanese

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 opposing ...

censors found troubling.

Summary

''Army'' tells the story of three generations of a Japanese family and their relationship with the army from the Meiji era through the

Japanese invasion of Manchuria The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the ...

. Ryu plays the man of the middle generation, Tomohiko, and Tanaka his wife Waka. A large portion of the movie concerns Tomohiko's and Waka's concern that their oldest son Shintaro will be too weak to become a good soldier and their efforts to mold him into one. Other portions of the movie include Tomohiko's own exclusion from fighting during the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

due to illness, and his later indignation when a friend suggests that Japan could lose a war.

Ending and reactions

In the wordless final scene of the movie, Shintaro marches off with the army for deployment in the invasion of Manchuria. Tanaka's character runs alongside him tearfully and expresses her anxiety over his well-being. Japanese wartime censors were upset by this scene because Japanese mothers in films were supposed be depicted as being proud to send their sons to battle, and not being at all upset about it. According to film critic

Donald Richie Donald Richie (17 April 1924 – 19 February 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also di ...

, the scene was spared being cut because arguably Tanaka's emotions were caused by her internal conflict between her duty to be happy to send her son off to war and her own selfishness by loving and trying to possess him. Criterion Collection essayist Michael Koresky and others attribute the fact that the script escaped censorship of this scene to the fact that the scene is wordless, and so in the script it merely states "The mother sees the son off at the station.” Koresky attributes the scene's power to purely cinematic elements, i.e., "expressive cutting, the variations in camera distance, Tanaka’s stunning performance." As a result of the final scene, which according to Richie was called "deplorable and an unnecessary stain on an otherwise fine film," Kinoshita was subjected to enhanced attention from the censors until the end of the war. Reportedly, an army officer stormed into the

Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not ...

film studio after the film's premiere on November 22, 1944, accusing Kinoshita of treason. He would not be permitted to release another film until after the war ended. According to author Alexander Jacoby, ''Army'' is superficially conformist but the final scene is an expression of Kinoshita's "antimilitarist sentiments." Kinoshita later stated that "I can’t lie to myself in my dramas. I couldn’t direct something that was like shaking hands and saying, ‘Come die.’”

Cast

as Tomohiko as an adult *

as Waka * Kazumasa Hoshino as Shintaro

References

External links

* {{Keisuke Kinoshita 1940s Japanese-language films Japanese black-and-white films Japanese war films Films directed by Keisuke Kinoshita 1944 films Shochiku films Films set in the Meiji period Films with screenplays by Tadao Ikeda 1940s war films