In response to the "Why did they campaign in China?" review. At the time, Japan had been forced open to foreign influence by the Americans in the mid 1800s. They saw what was going around with Westerners essentially turning China into their play thing and meddling as they wished in East Asia. Japan concluded that it would have to begin colonizing like the European powers in order to become more power such that they would be free of foreign influence. In that way, the Russo-Japanese war can be see as a defensive action. Russia and Japan had made a treaty before the war, but Russia kept encroaching on more and more land in violation.
The movie is old and it shows. The special effects aren't the best. The deaths are overly dramatic and as stated above, there is ketchup blood. The recoil on the cannons are nonexistent (which becomes rather laughable when you see the 28cm guns fire). There is a lot of saber rattling and Banzais, but there are some subplots away from the war.
For history buffs. I would watch this just because there is little else on Port Arthur. This is not a documentary of the whole siege however (the run time might fool you). The whole siege is not portrayed. The lieutenant main character is part of the 7th regiment of the ninth division which fought in some important actions of the siege but the whole effort was much greater. There is a small departure to the 203 meter hill as it has become a sort of symbol of the Siege of Port Arthur (why this is, I am not exactly sure, there was much desperate fighting in many other places as well).
