War is bad (spoilers)
I saw the Burmese Harp this week for the first time. I thought it was very powerful. Whether or not it was historically accurate was not the point, not for me anyway.
The film show two different groups of Japanese soldiers, the group that surrendered and the group in the mountain that refused to surrender.
The soldiers in the mountain were determined to fight to the death and that is pretty much what happened.
The soldiers that surrendered were a fairly mellow group that liked to sing and seemed interested in rebuilding Japan and returning to their former lives (napping at home, working at the factory, going to the movies, etc). I felt that Ichikawa preferred this mellow group over the vicious group.
It seemed to me that Ichikawa was trying to stress that the old Japan needed to be replaced by a kinder, gentler Japan, that rebuilding and going to work was preferable to going to war. Who knows, maybe I totally missed the point.