Film

The Burning Sky

1940 · 1h 41m · War

IMDb

6.4

The film was produced during Second Sino-Japanese War, before the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941. The film mainly concerns the training of newly-recruited pilots and their daily life, then their subsequent fighting experiences in China. Army supported the production, providing all the authentic airplanes, training and actual actions. They even provided the older biplanes disguised as Chinese fighter planes. Obinata plays the trainer-turned-combat-leader, who is passionate and cool at the same time. All his boys love him, of course. The film is not as intense, full of sugar-coated camaraderie, until young pilots are killed in action one by one. Last twenty minutes are fairly grim, as the message of self-sacrifice is heard loud and clear.

Susumu Fujita

Taizō Fukami

Katsuhiko Haida

Seishiro Hara

Kazuo Hasegawa

Kaoru Itō

Sōji Kiyokawa

Satoshi Komori

Jun Maki

Den Obinata

• Yutaka AbeDirector · Producer
• Yasutaro YagiScreenplay
• Komatsu KiyamuraStory
• Yoshio MiyajimaDirector of Photography
• Fumio HayasakaOriginal Music Composer
• Kosaku YamadaOriginal Music Composer
• Toshio GotoEditor

Release date

May 10, 1940

Status

Released

Original language

Japanese

Runtime

1h 41m

Genres

War