Director – Yasuzo Masumura – 1966 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 95m
An army nurse is sent to China – as a slogan in one of the film’s trailers puts it, “on the battlefield where life and death is decided.”
*****
Full Blu-ray review published at All The Anime.
In 1939, for her first posting, Nurse Sakura Nishi (Ayako Wakao) is sent to Tianjin Army Hospital. A number of the male patients appear to be faking medical conditions so as to escape the front line, where Japanese casualties are heavy. When she first does her rounds, Private Sakamoto (Jotaro Senba) and a number of the other men are very forward and ask her a lot of personal questions.
Much worse is to come, however, because when she does her night rounds, she finds herself trapped in the men’s dorm and raped by Sakamoto while the others hold her down. Reporting this incident to the head nurse (Ranko Akagi), Nishi learns she’s this soldier’s third victim. The head nurse resolves to have Sakamoto sent back to the front.
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Nishi is then posted to a front-line hospital where medics go through the incoming wounded, pronouncing them dead or designating them for surgery, for which read amputation. Army surgeon Second Lieutenant Okabe (Shinsuke Ashida), Nishi’s voice-over informs us, did 200 operations over three days and nights, going without sleep. Sakamoto turns up again among the wounded… [Read the rest at All The Anime]
Red Angel is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
Full Blu-ray review published at All The Anime.
Trailer: