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Yet again, I appear to be the only person on planet Earth who is capable of criticizing Japanese films made before 1970. "Fires on the Plain" (1959) is another in the seemingly endless line of "classics" that get all sorts of praise for no apparently good reason. As much as I love to overgeneralize and psychoanalyze all of these moviegoers who have such horrible taste in film, it's still nearly impossible to rationalize why anyone would ever think that poorly made fluff like this should be proclaimed as some sort of "masterpiece." What I find truly ironic is that fans of derivative "classics" like "Fires on the Plain" focus so much on "inside the box" movie-making (orthodox grading standards like scriptwriting, acting, camera-work, etc.) yet it always seems like the most highly revered "classics" are most deficient in these very standards. For example, one of the laziest copouts for a filmmaker involves forced verbal exposition where characters basically explain everything for the viewer even when the constructed scenario is totally artificial. Most surprisingly, the very first scene in "Fires on the Plain" uses this indolent tactic to the extreme.
After a funny head slap, the following useless dialogue assaults the viewer, "Why can't you grasp the situation? We landed to the west under heavy fire to reinforce units at Tacloban. We lost two-thirds of our men. Our artillery was sunk in transit. We tried to reach Burauen airfield by crossing the central mountains but without artillery it was impossible. The enemy's counterattack forced a fanout across the valley. You know that." So why, exactly, is one character telling another character something he already knows? Oh yeah, that's right, the makers of this film are too lazy to think of more natural ways to communicate this information. You see, a quality film would actually show these events happening, or at worst it would involve dialogue involving one character who has no knowledge of those events. Heck, even an opening summary in paragraph form directed at the viewer would have been better than what transpired here.
Such instances of poor quality movie-making are littered throughout "Fires on the Plain" to the point where this film feels like it was written by imbeciles for imbeciles. For example, the lead character stumbles upon some skeletons wrapped in Japanese garb. Instead of doing the natural thing like  oh I don't know  giving a depressed mannerism, the character blurts out "Japanese soldiers." Thanks buddy, but I could have figured that one out for myself.
Even worse, this movie is saturated with over-dramatic ploys. The most ridiculous scene involves a pair of boots. Picture this. A soldier walks along and finds a pair of worn out boots. One would think that such a find is utterly useless, but it turns out that the soldier's boots are in even worse condition, so he picks up the worn boots and leaves his SUPER worn boots behind. Fine, I get the point. The soldiers are in rough shape  a fact that is already clearly emphasized with their worn boots to begin with. The scene is ridiculous, but I was ready to let it go, until the SECOND soldier arrives! You see, he finds the previous soldier's SUPER worn boots and notices  get ready, cause here it comes  that his boots are SUPER DUPER worn boots! Lucky man, he picks up the SUPER worn boots and leaves his SUPER DUPER worn boots behind. But you see, that's not all  because the THIRD soldier then arrives! He finds the previous soldiers SUPER DUPER worn boots and inspects them, along with his own SUPER DUPER worn boots. Since both pairs suck, he tosses them both aside and smiles as he continues barefoot. At this point I was ready to throw my television through my living room window. The heavy handedness, overdramaticism, and paramount absurdity of this sequence is beyond bad film-making. It's SUPER DUPER bad film-making.
There are a number of similar, completely stupid moments to be had. Like the time when the lead character asks someone, "Hey, are you dead?" Like the guy is going to answer "Yes" if he actually kicked the bucket. I'll also be the first to condemn the subpar performance of the lead actor, who is the quintessential posterchild for artificial reaction. I laughed hard during that opening head slap where his head slingshot back in place with this stupid, goofy expression on his face.
The fact that this trivial fluff piece gets an IMDb average rating of 8.4 while a certifiable masterpiece like "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003) only gets a 7.5 is the height of mass stupidity. And to think that some people actually delude themselves into thinking that "AToTS" doesn't make sense. Well, not every movie can have completely outrageous SUPER DUPER worn boots on its side.


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