203 kochi (1980)

Depicts the bloody siege of the fortress Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War 1904 - 1905. In the story dominated the character Lt Takeshi Kogyo (Teruhiko Aoi), teachers, and a reserve... See full summary »

Director:

Toshio Masuda

Writer:

Kazuo Kasahara

Stars:

Tatsuya Nakadai, Teruhiko Aoi, Toshirô Mifune

6 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tatsuya Nakadai	...	General Nogi
Teruhiko Aoi	...	Takeshi Koga
Toshirô Mifune	...	Emperor Meiji
Hisaya Morishige	...	Hirobumi Ito
Shigeru Kôyama	...	Aritomo Yamagata
Masako Natsume	...	Sachi Matsuo
Masayuki Yuhara	...	Kikumatsu Umetani
Kentaro Kaneko	...	Shigeru Amachi
Tetsurô Tanba	...	General Kodama
Makoto Satô
Yoshio Inaba
Akio Hasegawa
Akihiko Hirata
Yôko Nogiwa	...	Shizuko Nogi
Sen Yano

Storyline

Depicts the bloody siege of the fortress Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War 1904 - 1905. In the story dominated the character Lt Takeshi Kogyo (Teruhiko Aoi), teachers, and a reserve officer who became commander of the platoon and later company. At the same time monitors the conduct of the army commander general Nogi (Tatsuya Nakadai), which was commissioned of the emperor Matsuhito(Toshirô Mifune) to the conquest of the fort.

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Plot Keywords:

russo japanese war | russia | meiji | manchuria | japan | 

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Genres:

Drama | History | War

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese Russian

Release Date:

20 March 1981 (USA)

Also Known As:

203 Plateaus

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toei Tokyo

Technical Specs

Runtime:

185 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie depicts the Japanese soldiers in dark blue uniforms throughout the whole movie when in fact, during the summer months they would have worn khaki instead and even in the winter months, many times they took to wearing khaki uniforms over their dark blue to help with concealment.

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Goofs

Tracer bullets were used multiple times in the movie. Tracer bullets were not in use in the war of 1904-1905 between Russia and Japan, being developed in 1915 by the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

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Soundtracks

Sakimori no uta
Written by Masashi Sada

User Reviews

Its an old movie and it definitely shows

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).