The Legacy of the 500.000 is the only directorial effort of actor Toshiro Mifune, which he also produced and of course starred in. He plays as Matsuo, seemingly an humble supervisor at a pencil making company. His past as a Imperial commander gets dug up when contacted by a businessman (Fellow acting legend Tatsuya Nakadai) he crossed paths with during the war in occupied Mandchuria. Turns out Matsuo was in charge, and the only survivor, of the party ordered to hide a cache of Japanese gold coins -supposed to support the occupied economy- somewhere in the Philippines during the nightmarish retreat of the Imperial forces. The businessman claims he only want to repatriate the gold to give it back to the struggling families that pawned it to the government. He quickly resort to kidnapping and blackmailing when he gets stonewalled however, and Matsuo is forcibly shipped with a party of thugs to the Philippines...
This is a pleasant B movie to watch though the direction is mostly functional (very good writing and pacing are doing the heavy work. Very abrupt ending, B film style, though), a touching tale about greed and human solidarity taking cues from American standards (strong Sierra Madre... vibes, notably). The politics quickly take a backseat to the moral questions but, as you would probably expect from an early 60s film, it's distinctly apologetic though not to insufferable levels (I would imagine the Filipino authorities would not have appreciated it, a lot of the film is shot on location). The very first scene of the film is about how the gold came from impoverished Japanese citizens, a footnote in the actual plot but clearly a point Mifune wanted to emphasize. The film is peppered with those sort of Japanese idiosyncracies (another faint accent is America pulling strings) despite, again, being mostly about broader morality questions. All in all worth your time and begs the question of why Mifune didn't direct more. Maybe he didn't have the knack for it ?
French label Carlotta is distributing it on Home Video & VOD (and has a small rerelease on screens) in a master that received some amount of restoration so maybe you can catch it somewhere.
The Philippines retreat is also at the core of Kon Ichikawa's
Fires in the Plain, made a handful of years earlier, not as a distant sobering memory for the protagonist however. Ensign Tamura is too ill to be any use for his battalion but not sick enough to be admitted to the already strained field hospital and end up caught in the US offensive while he is being ping-ponged between the two. Tamura start wandering aimlessly in the general direction of a retreat turning more desperate and hellish by the hour, shredding whatever is left of his humanity and decency.
Kon Ichikawa is famous for the Burmese Harp (and directing the official film of the Tokyo Olympics of 64) so suffice it to say that his visual flair is a lot stronger than Mifune. Fires in the Plain is a vivid, expressionist and striking film which sometimes veers as far as horrific tones (might have influenced some later movies even).
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Living dead films, to be precise.
While still told mostly from a Japanese perspective (it's interesting to note that in both films a background character mentions the New Guinea retreat for a similar effect), Ichikawa has no interest whatsoever for patriotic politeness. It is a journey through the purgatory for Tamura, with no illusion of a redemption to be found, only the struggle to not give in to the basest instincts, to commit the final outrage.
It's somber, meditative and could maybe drag for you. Cult director Tsukamoto liked it so much he remaked it in 2014 (I've been told he's mostly focusing on one specific sequence to turn it even more graphical).
Carlotta is also distributing that one over here though it's much more likely it's been picked up in the US too. My viewing was a bit soured by some digital restoration artifacts, mostly in the first reel. I would imagine that's sadly on the Japanese master though I can't be sure of that.
