New Restoration

“One of the great anti-war films—and one of the few to evoke a genuine sense of spiritual awakening … A hauntingly elegiac reverie of a movie.”

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

In the last days of World War II, a Japanese platoon sustains morale through the Burma campaign by singing traditional songs accompanied by the delicate harp-playing of Private Mizushima (Yasui Shoji). After the unit surrenders to British forces, Mizushima is tasked with convincing a holdout of cave-dwelling Japanese soldiers to lay down their arms; when his mission fails, he is counted among the dead. Mizushima survives, however, and becomes a monk who dedicates his life to providing proper burials for his fallen comrades. Meanwhile, his former platoon attempts to track him down by using music to express a shared sense of separation and longing for home. Adapted from Takeyama Michio’s classic novel, and renowned for legendary composer Ifukube Akira’s haunting score, Ichikawa Kon’s The Burmese Harp is an epic humanist masterpiece—a profound contemplation of suffering, redemption, and spiritual fortitude during the darkest periods of violence. —Janus Films

In Japanese, English, and Burmese with English subtitles

“An anti-war film, I always thought, should be like The Burmese Harp.”

Francis Ford Coppola

“One of the ten greatest Japanese films of the 1950s … A humanist masterwork.”

Matthew Thrift, BFI
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