The Burmese Harp (Masters of Cinema) DVD+Blu-ray

A rhapsodic celebration of song, a brutal condemnation of wartime mentality, and a lyrical statement of hope within darkness, The Burmese Harp stands as one of the great films of its era.

At the close of World War II, a Japanese army regiment in Burma surrenders to the British. Private Mizushima is sent on a lone mission to persuade a trapped Japanese battalion to surrender also. When the outcome is a failure, he disguises himself in the robes of a Buddhist monk in hope of temporary anonymity as he journeys across the landscape – but he underestimates the power of his assumed role.

A visually extraordinary and deeply moving vision of horror, necessity, and redemption in the aftermath of war, Ichikawa's breakthrough film is one of the great humanitarian affirmations of the cinema. Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and honoured at the Venice Film Festival, The Burmese Harp is one of cinema's great anti-war classics, alongside Renoir's La Grande Illusion, Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies, Kubrick's Paths of Glory, Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, and Chaplin's The Great Dictator.