This hilarious comedy by Yoichi Maeda (b. 1934) is a satiric and biting spoof of Japanese militarism and its hypocrisy. The film's protagonist is Katsuta, a tour conductor specializing in organizing visits to military-related sites in Tokyo. In Japan, reunions of war veterans were popular and business connections made through former comrades proved important. Katsuta and his partner rely on a clientele most of whom are relatives of their army comrades. One day, Katsuta has as a customer an old woman whose son was listed as a deserter and thus was not allowed to be entered in the government's shrine dedicated to the military dead. The son actually was pretending to be insane so as to evade fighting and was killed in an air-raid. To retaliate on behalf of the mother, Katsuta and his partner plan to rob the money from the shrine on the memorial day marking the end of WWII. They are joined by a crew of misfits including a hippie who failed to emigrate to Africa, and a young woman driven to extreme measures after being abandoned by her husband.-KH