The Unreturned Soldiers In Malaysia
War & Peace • 50m
Directed by Shohei Imamura • Documentary • 1971 • 45 minutes
In Malaysia, Imamura follows one false lead after another as he tries to locate unreturned Japanese who had given up the culture of their birth to integrate with Malaysian society. These wrong turns take the filmmaker on a tour through the complexities of post-war Malaysia, and allow him the time to air his outrage with the Japanese military's conduct in Southeast Asia, focusing particularly on the 1942 Sook Ching massacre.
The director eventually tracks down A-Kim, a former soldier who has converted to Islam and lives in a Malaysian community. In conversation with Imamura, Kim describes the unlikely peace he has made with his country of birth.
"The most shocking of [Imamura's documentaries], IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN THAILAND, climaxes with the director getting three of the title subjects drunk so that they'll speak casually about atrocities they committed during World War II."—Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader
Up Next in War & Peace
-
Congo: The Doctor Who Saves Women
Directed by Angele Diabang • Documentary • 2014 • 52 minutes
Dr. Denis Mukwege, the winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, is a gynecologist and the founder of Panzi, a hospital whose primary mission is treating women who have been raped - casualties in the Democratic Republic of Congo's decades-...
-
Ta'ang
Directed by Wang Bing • Documentary • 2016 • 147 minutes
Director Wang Bing brings his careful eye to the mountainous border-region of northeastern Myanmar in Ta’ang, a powerful and revealing observational documentary that follows members of the Ta’ang minority as they flee to China to escape an...
-
Bones of Contention
Directed by Andrea Weiss • Documentary • With Laura Garcia Lorca, Emilio Silva, Antoni Ruiz, Silvia Reyes, Isabel Franc, Empar Pineda, Fernando Valverde • 2017 • 75 minutes
BONES OF CONTENTION is the first nonfiction feature film to explore the theme of historical memory in Spain, focusing on th...
