How a young second lieutenant becomes your basic Bond is the subject of this spy-vs.-spy noir set in 1938 at the start of the Sino-Japanese War. Jiro (Raizo Ichikawa) leaves his fiancée for a mysterious military assignment-he and a few good men are to be trained as special agents at the newly established Nakano Spy School, based on the British model. (The girlfriend, meanwhile, becomes involved in the machinations of the British themselves.) A True Fiction-style narrative offers both lessons in spying (bring your notepad, and a sense of humor) and the lessons of spying: for all its worldly ideals, and even without uniforms, the Spy School is a microcosm of a closed society. This is the beauty of Masumura's ultra-dry voice. "The director's implication comes through the very restrained dialogue, the underplaying of all important scenes, the carefully drab photography, and a plot so cunningly wrought that the conclusion he desires-all patriots are monsters-is inescapable." (Variety) (JB)