LIFF23: The Red Angel
Yasuzo Masamura, Japan, 1966 (4k restoration)
A depiction of wartime madness so vivid that it trips into a kind of waking nightmare.
At a field hospital in Manchuria, China, casualties are piling high. The Japanese army is immersed in its gruelling WWII invasion and humanity is in short supply. Nurse Nishi (Ayako Wakao) is doing her level best to help her maimed patients, yet the men around her have either regressed to savagery or seek escape through morphine.
A thoroughly acerbic anti-war film, a howl of protest made by master stylist Yasuzo Masumura in the same year as The Spider Tattoo (also screening at LIFF 2023).
Part of Leeds International Film Festival.
Doors
12.45pm
Start time
1.30pm
Running time
95 minutes
Language
Japanese with English subtitles
Certificate
15, sexual violence, strong medical detail, sex, suicide
