Arrow Video continues to release films from Japanese studio Daiei Films and especially those of director Yasuzo Masumura. This is great news for film fans as many of these movies might have been lost to time and especially never seen in other countries. Not only do they give us a look at the world through a different set of eyes, it also provides a different perspective on events of the past. Such is the case with RED ANGEL which takes place during the second Sino-Japanese war that took place from 1937 through 1945.
The story is told by Nurse Sukura Nishi (Ayako Wakao), a young woman on her first tour of duty in China. Her first assignment is to work the mental ward filled with patients truly driven mad but populated by many who are just seeking a way out of returning to battle. One night while watching the war on her own, she is attacked by one of the Sakamoto (Jotaro Senba) along with the rest of the patients who rapes her. She informs the matron who says this is not the first time he’s done so. The next day he is sent back to the front.
With a shortage of staff on the front lines Nishi is sent along with several other nurses to a field station. There she works alongside Dr. Okabe (Shinsuke Ashida). One day Sakamoto is brought in with wounds the doctor says are so bad he can’t be saved. Nishi pleads with him to perform surgery and provide a transfusion. He agrees if she will meet him after hours in his room. The surgery is performed but Sakamoto does not survive. Nishi follows through with her pledge and shows up at Okabe’s room. Rather than take advantage of her he talks to her and tells her this is less a hospital and more a place to make decisions of life and death. He also has her help him with an injection of morphine he uses just so he can sleep.
Nishi returns to the first hospital where she is put in charge of patients out of surgery. There she meets a man who has lost both of his arms. They develop a relationship both personal and sexual. But that too will end in tragedy. And so will most of what follows in Nishi’s life.
The film is bleak in all aspects from the story to the look and feel of the film. Shot in black and white in 1966 it depicts the horrors of war in the most subtle fashion. We are not shown images of men being blown to bits but we are privy to their treatment. Due to a lack of supplies surgeries and amputations are done with only local anesthesia. At one point we watch as an amputated leg falls into the hands of an assistant and is then put into a barrel of severed limbs waiting to be disposed of. This is the all too real vision of war rarely seen, especially in 1966.
While watching I thought of the movie version of M*A*S*H shot 4 years later. At the time people were stunned at the depiction of surgery in the field and the amount of blood seen on screen. But there are two differences. The first is that RED ANGEL is shot in black and white which should diminish the shock and yet it doesn’t. The second is that M*A*S*H it tempered with humor to offset the gore seen on screen. RED ANGEL does none of that and in the end creates a more disturbing film.
There is little to no hope in the world depicted in this film. And while that may seem strange it is more reality based than many movies dealing with the same subject, war. Brutal as it may be so is war. It not only damages those involved physically it damages them mentally as well. And not just the soldiers who are wounded but those who cared for them too.
The one item in the film that surprised me more than the brutality of war was the depiction of men as little more than sex crazed lunatics. At every step of her journey Nishi is beset upon by men looking for sex be it the patients, the doctor or the Chinese that almost capture her. She is seen as nothing more than a sex object to them as opposed to the care giving professional that she is. Was this Masumura’s view on women? Was it the view of women at the time the movie takes place? Was it the view of women at the time the movie was shot? It’s disturbing no matter what the answer.
The movie offers a hard look at war and the results of battle. It is unbending in the depiction it offers and will be disturbing to most viewers. That said it is a film worth watching and seeing this depiction of war from the eyes of the Japanese, something rarely found in war films.
Arrow Video has done a fine job with this release just as they always do. Not only is the film presentation great looking they’ve included a number of extras worth noting. These include a brand new audio commentary by Japanese cinema scholar David Desser, a newly filmed introduction by Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns, “Not All Angels Have Wings”, a new visual essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum, the original trailer, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella and for the first pressing only an illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Irene González-López.
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