Based on a novel by Ryo Hanmura, Sengoku Jieitai is a story about a unit of Japanese Defence Force that finds themselves in the middle of feudal era Japan due to time slip.
21 Japan Defence Force (JDF) soldiers who were on a training mission in Toyama prefecture suddenly gets transported to feudal era Japan and meets Nagao Kagetora (Isao Natsuyagi) - a feudal era warlord. Capt. Iba (Shinichi Chiba) of JDF gets an ambition to take over the country using superior weaponry of modern JDF force.
This was the fourth attempt by Kadokawa Publishing to be in the movie business. Toho movie studio became the distributor of this movie so Toho's logo appears in the beginning, but the movie is made by Kadokawa. Producer Haruki Kadokawa himself makes an appearance as one of the JDF soldier.
Producer Haruki Kadokawa wanted to create a movie that had appeal to the younger viewers, and inserted blues and rock and roll based music into the movie even if it interrupted the flow of the movie. Young musicians and singers of the era such as Hiromitsu Suzuki, Hiroshi Kamayatsu, Ryudo Uzaki, Akira Nishikino, and Nana Okada made appearance in the movie to support this end.
The novel was the first science fiction that tried to accurately explore the "What if" scenario of modern technology making its way into past history. Other works have followed since such as "Jipang", and "Konpeki no Kantai". The movie follows its original intent and depict the interaction between JDF soldiers and the samurai as realistically as possible.
The movie was cut into 95 minutes in the US released version titled "GI Samurai". The original Japanese version runs for 139 minutes.
The movie version ends differently from the novel. In the original novel, the crew of JDF soldiers ends up altering their version of "history" to ironically match the known history. The original story showed how small human intent is compared to the wisdom of nature.
Idea of matching modern soldiers against samurai is a novel idea which makes this an interesting movie to watch.
21 Japan Defence Force (JDF) soldiers who were on a training mission in Toyama prefecture suddenly gets transported to feudal era Japan and meets Nagao Kagetora (Isao Natsuyagi) - a feudal era warlord. Capt. Iba (Shinichi Chiba) of JDF gets an ambition to take over the country using superior weaponry of modern JDF force.
This was the fourth attempt by Kadokawa Publishing to be in the movie business. Toho movie studio became the distributor of this movie so Toho's logo appears in the beginning, but the movie is made by Kadokawa. Producer Haruki Kadokawa himself makes an appearance as one of the JDF soldier.
Producer Haruki Kadokawa wanted to create a movie that had appeal to the younger viewers, and inserted blues and rock and roll based music into the movie even if it interrupted the flow of the movie. Young musicians and singers of the era such as Hiromitsu Suzuki, Hiroshi Kamayatsu, Ryudo Uzaki, Akira Nishikino, and Nana Okada made appearance in the movie to support this end.
The novel was the first science fiction that tried to accurately explore the "What if" scenario of modern technology making its way into past history. Other works have followed since such as "Jipang", and "Konpeki no Kantai". The movie follows its original intent and depict the interaction between JDF soldiers and the samurai as realistically as possible.
The movie was cut into 95 minutes in the US released version titled "GI Samurai". The original Japanese version runs for 139 minutes.
The movie version ends differently from the novel. In the original novel, the crew of JDF soldiers ends up altering their version of "history" to ironically match the known history. The original story showed how small human intent is compared to the wisdom of nature.
Idea of matching modern soldiers against samurai is a novel idea which makes this an interesting movie to watch.