Follows a bunch of school renegades and their downfall into criminality in a docu-drama style, completely refreshing for its time.
Mikami, a Japanese soldier, is captured by Chinese forces. Although able to escape, he is treated with contempt by his peers. After falling in love with a prostitute named Harumi, she convinces him to desert the army and live with her.
The final film in the Beehive trilogy, Children of the Great Buddha chronicles war orphans working as tour guides among the looming statues and temples of Japan’s ancient capital of Nara. Shimizu’s uncharacteristic hands-on approach to the film’s cinematography frames the sacred objects as “very real agents” in the children’s threadbare lives, resulting in a deeply moving and spiritual work that fittingly concludes his orphan saga.
