Sofia De Vera combines a heartfelt passion for cinema with over 15 years of critiquing for esteemed film publications, wielding academic credentials from the University of Southern California and New York University, to serve as your personal guide through the enchanting worlds of film and television. Her full guest bio can be found here.
As a country with a longstanding tradition in the art of strategy and combat, the history of Japan has inspired many tales of war and consequent Japanese war movies. Myths and legends of mighty characters have been written in ink, drawn in pencil, or shot in a film.
But sometimes creators get lost in the excitement that violence may bring into their hearts and use their tales to vainglory something as tragic and sad as war.
When selecting the films in this list, we’ve taken into account that they do a great job at portraying both the might and the crudeness of war, not only the first one. These films will bring you a greater understanding of the many wars that were fought in Japan, showing you the points of view both of Japanese people and foreigners. In sum, they will give you a big-picture look at the country’s military history and the many captivating stories that it has to tell.
But why watch war films at all? War films have an enduring appeal – and often portray the most extreme of human experiences: trauma, hardship, death, love, separation, violence and combat. War movies often cultivate a sense of gratitude; they touch us on a primal level and remind us at evil can be conquered, and that life is a gift. They teach us that freedom isn’t free and that there are heroes that protect our way of life from those who may seek to destroy it.
