The UK-based label Second Run has just released a Blu-ray and DVD of one of the most respected and internationally known Japanese documentaries, The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On, directed by Hara Kazuo in 1987. The movie has often appeared in best-documentaries lists around the web and in prestigious magazines as well, it was at number 23 of the Sight & Sound’s best documentaries of all time, a list compiled by critics in 2014.
Here the description of the movie and the extras included in the new release:
Presented from a new director-approved HD remaster, Second Run present one of the most renowned, ground-breaking and inspirational documentaries of the past half-century.
Conceived by Shôhei Imamura, Kazuo Hara’s infamous and audacious documentary follows Kenzo Okuzaki, an ageing Japanese WW2 veteran, on a mission to uncover the truth about atrocities committed as the war in the Pacific reached its bloody end. Ultimately, Okuzaki blames Japan’s Emperor Hirohito himself for these barbarities, and his obsessive pursuit of those he deems responsible soon escalates. Willing to confront the taboos of Japanese society in his fanatical quest for justice, Okuzaki is driven to unsettling acts of violence.
Harrowing and extraordinarily powerful, Hara’s film forces us to face the disturbing realities of war and, crucially, to question the complicity between filmmaker, subject and audience.
Our region-free Blu-ray and DVD editions also features a new interview with director Kazuo Hara, shot by the filmmaker especially for this release; the 2018 Open City Documentary Film Festival Masterclass with Hara and a booklet featuring writing by film historians Tony Rayns, Jason Wood and Abé Mark Nornes.
A great deal has been said and written about the documentary and about Hara himself, but if you want to explore more about the Japanese director, a good angle to approach his filmmaking is Camera Obtrusa: The Action Documentaries of Hara Kazuo (Kaya Production, 2009), a volume collecting some of Hara’s writings. If you want to know more about Kenzo Okuzaki, beyond Hara’s depiction of him in the film, there’s this in-depth paper written by scholar Tanaka Yuki, “Yamazaki, Shoot Emperor Hirohito!” Okuzaki Kenzo’s Legal Action to Abolish Chapter One (The Emperor) of Japan’s Constitution.
Asian Docs 