The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On

Kenzo Okuzaki, a notorious anti-establishment agitator, has made it his life’s mission to expose the crimes committed against his World War II military comrades by their own officers whilst stationed in New Guinea. Okuzaki is well known to the authorities - a one-man political protest movement, claiming Emperor Hirohito was solely responsible for the plight of the Japanese soldiers during the war, and even being imprisoned for a half-baked attempt on the Emperor’s life, amongst other things. To Okuzaki, no measures are too extreme in his quest to uncover the truth. A startling portrait of furious determination and one of the most striking documentaries ever made.

The films’ director, Kazuo Hara, whose confrontational style has been a huge influence on Michael Moore, made a career out of highlighting those at the margins of Japanese society. Influenced as a young man by Japan’s protest movement of the 60s and 70s, Hara is unrelenting in his approach to capturing his subjects’ truths - he calls his works “action documentaries”. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On is one of the finest examples of this.

“Kazuo Hara is one of the undiscovered geniuses of documentary. I first saw The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On at the San Francisco Film Festival. Werner Herzog and I were sitting together. We couldn’t believe it. Here was one of the weirdest, most dramatic stories ever. And the movie itself? What can I say? It’s on my list of the 10 best movies ever. You have all these layers: the underlying historical reality, the obsessed and crazed Mr. Okuzaki pursuing that historical reality despite all odds, and the obsessed and quite possibly crazed filmmaker pursuing Mr. Okuzaki.” — Errol Morris