Shingun no uta

As it survives, this movie is a second feature of 55 minutes. Shin Saburi is in jail as a union organizer (and by implication, a communist), when his draft notice comes. Although he hates capitalists and bosses -- who, he admits, have their own problems and complaints, although what they are is never mentioned -- he loves Japan, so he jumps at the chance to go shoot Chinese in China and probably be killed. His wife, Hiroko Kawasaki, will take care of their baby while he is gone, his bosses club together to throw him a party, the criminals in his cell send money gifts, as do the inspired jailers, and geisha Michiko Kuwano is inspired to become a front line nurse while he goes and, with any luck, dies in service of his country.

It's a gung ho attitude foreign to this modern American. Even at the height of the Second World War, the common American attitude was "I'm not happy about this, but it's a job that has to be done." It puts me in mind of the death-loving attitude that some people claim is a strong thread in many German arts. To me it sounds an awful lot like the joke in which some dictator tells a foreign diplomat that his soldiers are wiling to die at his command. As he orders the third to jump to his death, the diplomat grabs the man and demands to know how he can give up life this easily. The solider answers "You call this living?" and jumps.