At one point, he looks to the camera and tells viewers that he is doing this “for the sake of mankind,” so that people would stop regarding war as heroic, and see it for what it truly is. This may be the most confrontational documentary ever made; it also feels like the most urgent one. What makes this work so compelling is that it is both an exposé and a character study at the same time. I found myself constantly reassessing my opinion on the slightly unhinged activist. 

In Okuzaki’s mind, his unpredictable bursts of aggression are nothing compared to the horrific acts of cannibalism that he witnessed in the Pacific. In fact, throughout the film, he makes a point of taking responsibility for his actions. In one scene, he calls the police and informs them that he has hit an old man, and then proceeds to wait for their arrival. Okuzaki is clearly trying to make a point; we should take responsibility for our actions and own up to them. 

At first, the chief of staff of the Japanese Seventeenth Army stands his ground. He gets cornered, threatened and beaten up, but won’t budge. He even tells them to read his book, in which he wrote it all down. The book claims that when the food supply ran low, he and his men had to resort to eating grass. I was reminded of Napoleon’s famous words, “What is history, but a fable agreed upon.” We only tell the story we want to be out there, not the one that actually happened. 

In this case, the concealed truth is that isolated Japanese soldiers found themselves reduced to cannibalism. First, they tried to feast on the natives. They called this flesh “black pig,” but the natives were too hard to catch, so they tried to catch easier prey. “White pig” referred to Australian soldiers. When things got really bad, they turned against each other and ate their own. I find it so disturbing that they actually classified different human flesh based on skin color, but when the situation got desperate, none of that mattered. They started picking people off based on personality.

Everything leads to one of the most gripping sequences in cinema, the final confrontation. Something very interesting happens towards the end of the interrogation, as Okuzaki changes tactics. Instead of attacking the accused, he begins opening up about his own crimes. He tells the person he is accusing of cannibalism that he too has killed but chose not to bottle it up. The director then captures a beautiful subtle moment. We see a close-up of the old man’s clenched fist loosening up. He is ready to confess. 

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