THE EMPORER'S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON

(1987) Director: Kazuo Hara

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On is a brilliant exploration of memory and war guilt, a subject often ignored in modern Japan. In this controversial documentary, Kazuo Hara follows Kenzo Okuzaki in his real-life struggle against Emperor Hirohito. He proudly declares that he shot BBs at the Royal Palace, distributed pornographic images of the Emperor, and once killed a man for the sake of his strange crusade. As the film progresses, Okuzaki reveals a gruesome mystery: why were some Japanese officers killing their own soldiers during WWII? What happened to their bodies? Okuzaki begs, cajoles, and occasionally beats the story out of elderly veterans. When these old men do break down and talk, their testimonies are some of the most chilling, riveting descriptions of wartime desperation ever committed to film. In his desire to unearth these horrors, Okuzaki's behavior grows increasingly extreme and bizarre. By the film's end, Hara seems to ask whether the terrible nature of this buried incident is worth the violence of Okuzaki's methods. - Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE (NO SUBTITLES)



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Filming at the Margins: The Documentaries of Hara Kazuo (Essay by Kenneth Ruoff)
• Kazuo Hara Crosses the Line (Essay Village Voice)
• Slant Magazine review
• Essay on The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On from Offscreen.com
• Japan's Outlaw Filmmaker: An Interview with Hara Kazuo

NOTES:

• Kenzo Okuzaki passed away in 2005, almost 20 years after the making of the film.
• Kenzo Okuzaki also ran for public office in 1983 during the filming. His official campaign video is on Youtube here. (lovehkfilm.com)
• “I like to make dramatic movies. I feel strongly about this, more than other directors. I love Hollywood action films, and I wanted Okuzaki to act like an action star. I want to make action documentary films.” - Kazuo Hara
• “From my viewpoint, a documentary should explore things that people don’t want explored, bring things out of the closet, to examine why people want to hide certain things.”
• “My outlaw complex is very strong. I don’t feel that I’m in the middle of society. I am in the lower part. Those people on the bottom disdain those people in the mainstream. A movie director from the ‘bottom’ does not make movies that portray mainstream society nicely. I make bitter films.”
• The film started out as something quite different: a broad portrait of the war generation. It was “only after the filming of ex-Sergeant Takami Minoru [scene 11, about a half-hour into the film, which confirms that the garrison leader Koshimizu shot one of his own men] did Hara narrow his focus to the murder of Japanese soldiers by their superior officers during the New Guinea campaign.”
  
• R & R: “Okuzaki was as overbearing a star as any filmmaker could find. The director recalled that his outlandish subject was always fighting with the crew: “Some of the younger staff members quit. I, too, really came to dislike Okuzaki. He was chaotic. In the film he sounds logical only because of skillful editing. The way he speaks is often incoherent.” At numerous points during the shooting, the erratic veteran withdrew from the project. In one case, he threatened to burn all the accumulated footage in Tokyo.” [...]
• “Shortly after the filmed encounter with ex-medic Hamaguchi Masaichi, Okuzaki disclosed his intention to murder one of his former officers, hoping to convince the director to record the homicide. “I want to kill Koshimizu and I would like you to film it”, the veteran told Hara. “No movie has such a scene in it. Having you film such a scene would be my greatest present to you.” Hara discussed the issue at great length with his lawyer, his producer and other directors. The filmmaker recalled: “This was a very delicate problem. I had to decide if I should film it or not. I still have not made up my mind. One reason that I didn’t film it is that I had become really sick of Okuzaki. I might have filmed it. Human beings have dark sides, and people want to see something frightening. People want to see the evil side of people. A little bit of me says I would like to see it. I went to speak with Imamura. His opinion was really different. He told me not to do it.”” (filmofthemonthclub.blogspot.com)