Set in the Sino-Japanese war, Yasuzo Masumura's black-and-white anti-war film tells of an army nurse who sexually services an amputee and falls in love with a drug-addicted surgeon. This can't be recommended to the squeamish, but neither can its nuanced eroticism nor its passionate, unpredictable moral focus, be easily shaken off. Comparable with Altman's MASH, it suggests a less comic treatment of the same theme, how to preserve one's humanity in impossible circumstances, but its ethics are con find out more...

Set in Shanghai during the Chinese Revolution, the storyline explores the relationship between a missionary, Megan, and a Chinese warlord, General Yen. It's refreshing to see Capra tackling something more alien to him than the struggles of idealistic American men and he seems to have taken a healthy interest in a culture that at the time was still shrouded in mystery and secrecy. The style of the film is infused with the Orient, from its zen-like mise en scene to the director's inclusion of c find out more...