Here's a movie that reflects the old adage that war is 99% boredom and 1% terror. It's the lead-up to the battle of Kawanakajima on August 15, 1561 in Japan. You may recall the events from Kurosawa's KAGEMUSHA. Indeed, Shingen Takeda appears in this, played by Denjirô Ôkôchi. There's no claim, however that it's actually a thief pretending to be him.
He doesn't show up much here, though, just occasionally to discuss the battle. This is a movie about the foot soldiers, some guys trying to get through the forest as part of the battle, and to die. They're hungry, they're tired, they grumble a lot. In fact, they ae remarkably familiar seeming to anyone who's ever read Ernie Pyle's dispatches. Ordinary Wiilies and Joes -- or whatever the Japanese equivalent is. While the men in charge are discussing strategy, and the guys on horseback are riding past with those banners fluttering in the wind, these guys are slogging through the forest.
It's an amazingly humanistic view of war directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa for 1941, when Japanese war movies were about the glories of dying from a bullet. Perhaps the fact that this was about a battle four centuries earlier, and they weren't dying for the Emperor let Kinugasa get away with it. Perhaps that's why he chose to tell this story.
There's some gorgeous camerawork by Mitsuo Miura, who takes advantage of the spotty light in the forests, the dappling of water flowing streams, and the banner snapping in the breeze. It's a pleasure to watch this.... until people start dying.
