The Burmese Harp (Japanese, English, DVD)

Kon Ichikawa directs this elegiac World War Two drama. In the closing days of the war, a small regiment of Japanese soldiers is fighting in a remote part of Burma, unaware that the unconditional surrender of Japan has already taken place. When Private Mizushima (Shoji Yasui), a self-taught lute player, is sent to tell the company that it must surrender, he delights the soldiers with his music but fails to convince them that they must surrender to the British. Many die in the attack that follows, and Mizushima's companions believe that he has also been killed - but in fact he has survived by adopting the guise of a Buddhist monk.