Momotaro, Sacred Sailors

For years I've wanted to see a bloodthirsty, "Gung Ho!" Japanese equivalent of those eye-watering war movies that came out of Hollywood during the war in the Pacific, and have always been sceptical of the claim that such films simply weren't made. Japan's overwhelming military defeat in 1945 and the destruction of most of their film output up until that time makes this claim difficult to test, but my scepticism is now further reinforced by the final ten minutes of this bizarre film which narrowly survived Japan's postwar cinematic auto-de-fé.

For nine tenths of its running time this could pass for a rather dodgy childrens' film in which various fluffy animals in flying suits vaguely resembling the Gremlin in 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' sing, frolic about and express their enthusiasm for serving their country as airmen at the shrill urging of the one character in the film who actually looks as if he might be human, the baby-faced, staring-eyed Momotaro.

But when the hectoring Momotaro (who has just the kind of face you'd like to slap) eventually parachutes into 'Devil's Island' with his airbourne comrades to blow up and bayonet swarms of cringing caricature Yanks & Tommies - after which, arms folded, he sternly issues his terms for 'Unconditional Surrender' to their flummoxed commanding officers - one is forcefully reminded of the total lack of magananimity Japan had shown the people of the territories they had occupied throughout the thirties; and remain relieved that this concluding sequence never managed to be more than just a pipe dream.