World War II · Film · 1956
The Burmese Harp
ビルマの竪琴
At the end of the war in Burma, a Japanese soldier who plays the harp is sent to persuade a holdout unit to surrender, and afterwards cannot bring himself to go home.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 1 places.
Stop 1: Mudon, southern Burma
Key location
Held in a prisoner camp, Mizushima's comrades sing and wait, sure he is alive, while a monk who resembles him passes by with a harp.
What really happened
Japan invaded Burma in 1942 and was driven out by the British Fourteenth Army in 1944 and 1945, after the failed Japanese offensive on Imphal and Kohima. Retreating through jungle and monsoon, the Japanese army lost well over 100,000 men in Burma, many of them to starvation and disease, and countless bodies were left unburied along the routes of withdrawal.
After the surrender in August 1945, Japanese troops in Burma were held in British camps, some of them in Mon State in the south, and most were repatriated in 1946 and 1947. The film adapts Michio Takeyama's children's novel; Mizushima and his singing company are fictional.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- ビルマの竪琴
- Directed by
- Kon Ichikawa
- Countries
- Japan
- Languages
- Japanese, English
- Released
- 1956
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- China & Southeast Asia
- Themes
- Prisoners of war
