Samurai and Japanese Movies DVD Store : TOWER OF THE LILIES (1953)

Himeyuri no To - Tower of the Lilies is the true story of a group of high school girls on the island of Okinawa, who were mobilized into military service as nurses in the closing months of World War II.

The girls, around 200 in all, were thrust into the Battle of Okinawa, one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles in the Pacific. Known as the Himeyuri Corps, they were ordered to join the medical units in large bunker caves where injured soldiers received treatment.

As American forces gained a foothold in the southern part of Okinawa and pressed further inland, and with casualties mounting ever higher, the medical units were forced to relocate to a series of caves. After three months of intense fighting, once the Americans finally broke through the last lines of defense, the Japanese military disbanded the Himeyuri Corps. The girls were left to fend for themselves in the face of enemy tanks and the hail of artillery, called the 'Typhoon of Steel'.

The film was an enormous success. Japanese audiences strongly identified with the shared sacrifice and perseverance of civilians during the war. The film spawned no less than four remakes, including one by the original director himself, Tadashi Imai. Filmed shortly after the end of the Allied Occupation, it was one of the first films produced in Japan which cast the Japanese military in a negative light, though critic Donald Ritchie says, “If it is ‘anti’ anything, the film is anti-war.”

Director: Tadashi Imai

Stars: Kyoko Kagawa, Susumu Fujita and Keiko Tsushima

1953 - JAPANESE with OPTIONAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES - B&W - FULL SCREEN - 130 MINUTES

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Destination: United States