Imagine a 65-year-old man who goes from one house to another. First, he apologizes for landing uninvited and bows down a hundred times in respect of the homeowners. Then he confronts them to find out the truth about something that happened almost 40 years ago, and when he does not get the answer he wants, he starts beating them up. And I don't mean a minor skirmish, but beating the shit out of them. He kicks, punches, takes pride in his actions, and says, "violence is my forte."
This is precisely what the docufilm – “The Emperors Naked Army Marches On” by Kazuo Hara brings to the viewer. Kazuo Hara and his film crew follow the journey of Kenzo Okuzaki in 1987 as he sets out to find the truth about what happened to his compatriots in the Japanese Imperial Army during the last days of World War II. Kenzo Okuzaki had long suspected that many low-ranking soldiers were marked for death and cannibalized by senior Japanese army officials in fear of starvation during the last months of their campaign while stationed at New Guinea. He tracked down his senior Japanese officials after 40 years and was almost always able to coerce them into telling him the truth about their time in New Guinea.
How successful he was in finding the truth is subjective, and to outrightly call him out for his methods to find out said truth I believe is wrong. I feel we must understand why he was doing what he was doing. These people who lost their lives, and inexplicably so, were Kenzo Okuzaki's friends. Friends who went through the same hell as himself in New Guinea and possibly the only ones who understood how that experience changes an individual. He wanted to honor them and bring peace to their souls by ousting the truth about their death. This was something he also mentioned in the beginning while visiting the families of his lost compatriots. Another aspect of this documentary about Kenzo that never really got the spotlight was the trauma he had been carrying from his experience with war. Maybe this is the case because Kazuo Hara was more concerned about filming Kenzo's journey and his confrontations with various ex-Japanese senior officials. But as viewers, we must understand that trauma is the driving force behind his actions.
Kenzo Okuzaki was self-righteous about himself and his violent conduct, he explicitly stated that he'll never shy away from using violence to find out the truth. Before his journey in search of the truth had begun, he was charged with homicide and had served a prison sentence for the same. He justified his actions by saying that the person he killed had lied to him and done him wrong (classic Kenzo behavior). As we categorize him as someone who needs psychiatric help, we must also attempt to understand how his dark past affected his life long after the war had ended. How he had difficulty adjusting to civilian life and based on his trajectory after the war, I would say he never really recovered from the horrors of war.
I don't expect anyone to sympathize with Kenzo Okuzaki. After all, to put it simply, he was a murdering anarchist who beat people up whenever he didn't get his way. But I prefer to try and look a bit deeper into the shades of grey and the best I could do is understand his point of view instead of simply categorizing his story as that of a madman; understand the reasons behind his behavior, and that’s the best you can do too. All I can ask of a reader is to understand his point of view behind his misguided actions before blatantly calling him out because that man did lead an extraordinary life. I hope it serves as a cautionary tale to others as to how war can change individuals. I constantly hear – war changes a man, but in Kenzo Okuzaki's story, I could truly understand its impact.
I wish I could tell you he changed his ways and lived a happy and healthy life but I would be lying (And I don't want Kenzo's ghost to come after me). In the end, he reached out to his senior-most Japanese official from the campaign in New Guinea who denied all allegations of cannibalism. Hellbent on his truth, Kenzo Okuzaki went to New Guinea with Kazuo Hara the following year to continue the documentary, but the footage they shot was ceased by the Guinean government before they could leave. The documentary ends with a newspaper clipping that reads that Kenzo Okuzaki went to the same official's home later and shot his son. For this, he faced 12 years of rigorous imprisonment and hard labor. Kazuo Hara and his film crew were not present when Kenzo attempted this.
The Emperor's naked army marches on is really a one-of-a-kind documentary. A character like Kenzo Okuzaki could not have come from any writer's imagination. I’m certain I will never come across such a story again. I ponder upon what legacy Kenzo Okuzaki left for himself and I might find a satisfactory answer someday but that answer is still subjective to me. If I look back on him and his life, I see a broken man desperately trying to gain a false sense of control over worldly events not in his hands. I’m sure he wouldn’t agree with me on this and will have a whole other perspective on the legacy he left behind. I can't help but wonder how his wife and daughter coped with his actions and what consequences they both had to face because of Kenzo. We see and read about what he did but for them, his actions were their reality. The human aspect of this story is what intrigues me rather than Kenzo’s actions and it is something I may never truly figure out and that, in itself, is a real pity.
- Written by Rae Khanna
such a great read 🧸🤍
Amazing work !