During
the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the film director, Yasujiro
Ozu, was sent to China to fight in the war. According to his diary, at
the beginning of the war, he was making plans to make war films once he
goes back to his homeland Japan. His diary was filled with ideas of
scenes which depict the daily lives of the soldiers in a foreign
country. But at some point during the war he stopped making such notes.
As a soldier, he was the unit leader for a unit which spread chemical
gas against the Chinese army. He saw and experienced the worst of the
war. After Ozu came back to Japan, he never made a single war film nor a
single scene involving war battles. All the scars of the war are
erased, and repressed under the surface of beautiful daily lives of the
people on screen.