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And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
Hope
To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.--
Erich Fromm
Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)
Hara’s best-known film is also his most controversial: a portrait of Kenzo Okuzaki, a radical anti-Imperialist activist and convicted criminal, imprisoned for murdering a real estate agent and for shooting pachinko balls at the Emperor of Japan. Okuzaki’s dark experiences as a veteran of the brutal Japanese occupation of New Guinea inspired him to denounce the Emperor as a war criminal, a stance far from the mainstream of Japanese society at the time and to this day.
“The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” paved the way for documentaries like Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence.” Like the aforementioned titles, the director uses the film camera as a weapon to obtain social justice. Everything unfolds live before your eyes; Hara uses the medium to put people on trial in front of the whole world. “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” is fearless and fascinating cinema that forces you to think, and makes you ask questions about how we experience and record history.
It took Kazuo Hara five years to get “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” made, and it took me even longer than that to finally see it. For the longest time, this masterpiece was only available to watch in extremely low-resolution video or by purchasing a pricy out of print DVD that would occasionally pop up on eBay. Thankfully, Second Run just released a restoration of the relatively obscure documentary; it is one of the most important Blu-ray releases of the year. I highly recommend snatching a copy before it goes out of print again.
In this documentation, the focus is mainly on Kenzo Okuzaki, a complex man who will do anything to get veterans to confess to the barbaric atrocities committed in New Guinea towards the end of World War II. In his relentless campaign for truth and reconciliation, he tries to disclose facts about the deaths of two soldiers who got executed three weeks after the war was over.
Throughout the film, Okuzaki visits one war veteran after the other to question them about what went down in the jungle long ago. Whenever the conversation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, Okuzaki resorts to violence. He punches, kicks, and wrestles old war vets to get to the bottom of things. And although the morally ambiguous tactics used in pursuit of truth and justice will surely make any viewer feel uncomfortable, once you grasp the gravity of the situation, you begin to understand that the unorthodox methods he uses stem from years of suffering.
At one point, he looks to the camera and tells viewers that he is doing this “for the sake of mankind,” so that people would stop regarding war as heroic, and see it for what it truly is. This may be the most confrontational documentary ever made; it also feels like the most urgent one. What makes this work so compelling is that it is both an exposé and a character study at the same time. I found myself constantly reassessing my opinion on the slightly unhinged activist.
In Okuzaki’s mind, his unpredictable bursts of aggression are nothing compared to the horrific acts of cannibalism that he witnessed in the Pacific. In fact, throughout the film, he makes a point of taking responsibility for his actions. In one scene, he calls the police and informs them that he has hit an old man, and then proceeds to wait for their arrival.
https://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/for-the-sake-of-mankind-a-look-at-the-emperors-naked-army-marches-on
“The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” New Yorker >>>
1. Early Life and Military Service
Born in Akashi, Hyōgo Prefecture, Okuzaki's early life was shaped by the poverty of the Great Depression. He was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941 and eventually sent to New Guinea in 1943 as part of the 36th Independent Engineering Regiment.
The New Guinea campaign was one of the most brutal of the war. Out of Okuzaki's 1,200-man regiment, only six survived. Cut off from supplies and ravaged by tropical diseases, the stranded soldiers faced mass starvation. It was during this time that Okuzaki witnessed or heard reports of the "unspeakable"—including the execution of Japanese soldiers by their own officers and widespread cannibalism. These traumas became the foundation for his lifelong hatred of the military hierarchy and the Emperor.
2. Post-War Activism and Infamy
After the war, Okuzaki returned to Japan and opened a car battery and used-car shop in Kobe. However, he could not reconcile with a society that he felt had conveniently "forgotten" the crimes of the war.
Key Incidents:
The Slingshot Attack (1969): On January 2, 1969, during a New Year’s appearance by the Imperial Family, Okuzaki fired three (or four) pachinko balls from a slingshot at Emperor Hirohito from a distance of 26.5 meters. He missed the Emperor but achieved his goal: being arrested so he could use the trial to challenge the constitutionality of the Emperor system.
The Pornographic Pamphlets: He later served time for distributing handbills that featured pornographic collages of the Emperor, intended to desecrate the "sacred" image of the monarchy.
Violence as a "Forté": Okuzaki frequently used violence or the threat of it as a political tool. He served a 10-year sentence for the manslaughter of a real estate broker in the 1950s and was later imprisoned for 12 years after shooting the son of his former commander, Masao Koshimizu.
3. "The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On"
Okuzaki became a global figure of interest through the 1987 documentary Yuki Yukite, Shingun (The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On), directed by Kazuo Hara.
The film follows a 62-year-old Okuzaki as he travels across Japan to track down former officers and soldiers from his old unit. His mission is to uncover the truth behind the execution of two privates that occurred 23 days after Japan’s surrender.
Highlights of the Documentary:
Confrontation: Okuzaki arrives unannounced at the homes of elderly veterans, physically assaulting them when they refuse to speak or give "insincere" answers.
The Cannibalism Taboo: The film eventually reveals the horrific truth: the two soldiers were not executed for desertion, as officially claimed, but were killed to be eaten by their superiors.
The Director’s Role: The film is famous for the "complicity" of director Kazuo Hara, who continues to film even as Okuzaki beats old men, raising profound ethical questions about the nature of documentary filmmaking.
4. Ideology and "The Divine Army"
Okuzaki referred to himself as a "Soldier of the Divine Army." His ideology was a bizarre, idiosyncratic blend of anarchism, Christianity, and self-ordained divinity. He believed that because the state and the Emperor had abdicated their moral responsibility, he was personally chosen by God to execute justice. He often drove a van covered in hand-painted slogans like "Kill Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka" and "Yamazaki, Shoot the Emperor!"
5. Death and Legacy
Okuzaki died in 2005 at the age of 85. He remains one of the most polarizing figures in modern Japanese history. To some, he was a "lunatic" and a dangerous criminal; to others, he was the only man brave enough to tear the mask off Japan’s wartime past and force a confrontation with the uncomfortable truth of the Shōwa era.
Period | Event/Role |
|---|
1943–1945 | Served in New Guinea; one of 6 survivors of his regiment. |
1956 | Convicted of manslaughter (Real estate broker). |
1969 | Slingshot attack on Emperor Hirohito. |
1982–1983. | Filming of The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On. |
1983 | Arrested for the attempted murder of his former captain's son. |
2005 | Died in Kobe, Japan. |
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