The Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi

The Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi (西住戦車長伝, Nishizumi Senshachō Den), more known under the title The Story of Tank Commander Nishizumi, is a 1940 Japanese "humanist" war film directed by Kōzaburō Yoshimura.

Film

The movie shows the common Japanese soldier as an individual and as a family man, and even enemy Chinese soldiers are presented as individuals, sometimes fighting bravely. Based on a true story of the Sino-Japanese war involving Japanese war hero Kojirō Nishizumi, it served as propaganda, instructing its audience in the correct way to endure loss without despair. To make the film, Yoshimura toured the actual battlefields in China.[1]

Reception

Cinema theorist Kate Taylor-Jones suggests that along with films like Mud and Soldiers and Chocolate and Soldiers, The Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi provided "a vision of the noble, obedient and honourable Japanese army fighting to defend the emperor and Japan."[2]

References

High, Peter B. (January 2003). The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years' War, 1931-1945. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 211–217. ISBN 978-0-299-18134-5.
Taylor-Jones, Kate (16 July 2013). Rising Sun, Divided Land: Japanese and South Korean Filmmakers. Wallflower Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-231-16586-0.

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[High2003-1] High, Peter B. (January 2003). The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years' War, 1931-1945. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 211–217. ISBN 978-0-299-18134-5.

[Taylor-Jones2013-2] Taylor-Jones, Kate (16 July 2013). Rising Sun, Divided Land: Japanese and South Korean Filmmakers. Wallflower Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-231-16586-0.