Toshimasa Inoue
A band of guerrillas fight against occupying British forces in Malaya.
"Around the time he made such remarkably ambivalent war films as Mud and Soldiers and Five Scouts, Tasaka directed this 'home front' comedy-drama which is too bizarre to be serious propaganda. [The plot revolves around a public contribution campaign to buy airplanes.] The mayor's aviator son promises to fly over the village in salute, and much of the narrative concerns the preparations for this great event. Tasaka throws in a few songs, some village humor and satire, and tremendous camera mobility, finally wringing every possible effect from his climax." John Gillett, British Film Institute
Tomotaka Tasaka's A Pebble by the Wayside (Robo no Ishi), made in 1938 and taken from a Yuzo Yamamoto novel, takes place around 1902, was about a young boy brought up entirely by his mother since his drunken father is never home. An intelligent teacher wants to send him to middle school, but instead the father apprentices him to a clothing store to which he is in debt. The mother dies and the boy is forced to quit work when his father insults the store owner. Later the boy goes to Tokyo, but only to continue his hardships. First he is forced to do a maid's job at a boarding house and later is used by an old woman to steal at funerals. Finally he is rescued by the teacher, whom he meets in Tokyo.
A spy (Yukiko Todoroki) infiltrates an aircraft company as an employee and tries to obtain a report on a new engine developed by engineer Morimoto (Ichiro Izawa). Behind it is a spy organization which aims to destroy it. The crew, who fail to rob the report, set a time bomb on the stage at the announcement the secret of the engine as a last resort. Director Hiroyuki Yamamoto is known for national spy movies such as "The Man Who Came from Chongqing" (1943), and worked for Nikkatsu Tamagawa Film Studio before it was integrated into the new company Daiei. This film was long thought to be lost and only recovered in a 70-minute version in the Gosfilm archives in the USSR. Although it was criticized at that time, it is said that a letter of appreciation was also given by the commander of the military police for improving the counterintelligence of the people. (from National Film Archive of Japan)
