Fresh
This downbeat but fervent pic goes much further than the accepted war masterpieces in detailing humanity in crisis, and the spark left in one man. Production one of the most searing comments on war yet made.
Variety Staff, Variety
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Fires on the Plain
Overview
In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
100%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Packs a powerful antiwar message. As with Eastwood's Iwo Jima, it dispels the myth that every Japanese soldier had the suicidal desire to die for his country.
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
Fresh
The performance of Eiji Funakoshi as the straggler cannot help but make you feel a terrible sense of the human waste and pathos represented in the ruin of this poor man.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Fresh
No other film on the horrors of war has gone anywhere near as far as Kon Ichikawa's 1959 Japanese feature.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
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