I've been waiting about 20 years to see a genuine translation of this scene because i can't understand japanese. Thank you for finally uploading a good one and putting my soul at ease.
Yes. Thank you. I always wondered what the Japanese soldier said. Just like i always wondered what the German soldier said that killed the Jewish soldier with the knife at the end of Saving Private Ryan.
you can go to a question site post a link of the german soldier talking and go on category german language and im sure someone could translate it for you
I, too, have been waiting for those 20 years, and I guess I'm too lazy to learn Japanese, but my desire is just short of that level. What a revelation to see their words. Any chance you could translate the dying Japanese NCO with the crows? Much appreciated.
Thank you so much for uploading this. This scene was poignant as Malick left it, without the subtitles. Witt finally realizes the calm his mother left the world with and he is at peace ( as he hoped he would be when the moment came) knowing he is going to die. With the subtitles on, Witt is having that entire experience while his enemy is begging him to surrender peacefully. The soldier is almost a reflection of Witt just in another uniform. He doesn't want to kill this person. It's as if throughout the course of the film this soldier was having the same thoughts, ponders and internal conflict that all of the Americans were shown having. It really brings this movie full circle. "All faces are the same man." On the surface Malick is a genius, beneath he is a mastermind.
I think Witt, at the moment of his death, returned to a time and place where he was genuinely happy; as we all do the moment we die -- if we were good in this world.
..which , of course, never occurred with any japanese infantry man AMONGST his unit pointing the gun on the single enemy..."surrender honorably ?????" muhahahahaha...Malic didnot learn about the actual jap war...
I can't believe how some people are going on about how something like this could never have happened. Yes, the Japanese military was involved in some terrible acts - no one is denying that: it still doesn't mean that every person in the Japanese I military was a criminal.
Exactly so. There's no denying acts that the Japanese military was involved in, but some people think that every person in the Japanese military was some fanatic looking forward to killing people, which is just wrong. Especially among younger soldiers who were conscripted into the war and were there were there because they had been ordered to - they would have much preferred to have stayed home with their families without having to fight in a war (of which they didn't really know that much about, other than being told that the USA is their enemy). Scenes like this only show that that in the Japanese military there were humans - some terrible, but some were just ordinary people. Another good movie that shows this well is Letters from Iwo Jima.
Bear in mind that, alongside the "be brave, surrender, don't throw away your life" material, he's also repeating the "Were you the one who killed my man" question -- might not be an entirely altruistic statement (not that Witt could understand it anyway). But I love the scene, and its translation, nonetheless.
@@stephenderogier6790 Indeed. Every individual person deserves to be judged as an individual, for their own individual actions. Lumping people into (negative) groups is exactly how we, humanity, get ourselves into wars and conflicts in the first place.
I like how there was that moment when he could see in Witt’s eyes what he was about to do and tried to stop him. Also humanized the Japanese soldiers as well. Highly highly underrated movie.
When the Japanese soldier tell Witt to surrender he points his gun down which means he really doesn’t want to kill a person. He repeats (a)Witt to surrender because he doesn’t want to kill him and (b)Witt killed his friends. However the tone he says (b) escalates and he can’t control his hate towards Witt anymore that his repetitive “I don’t want to kill you” line is cut short to “I” (want to kill you because you killed my brothers) and command Witt not to move even though Witt is still. This Japanese soldier (a)innate light is almost overcome with (b)darkness. Witt sees that and sacrifices himself by pointing his gun up to give the Japanese soldier reason to kill him. Witt had enough of lights being put out. The conflict between (a)these and (b)antithese is resolved by Witt accepting his death and showing mercy to his enemy.Truly Jesus Christ act. I didn’t notice this scene was about Aufheben until today. Thanks for uploading this vid!
wow..i had a rough idea of what he was saying but to actually finally see it makes this scene so powerful...this film does a great job of showing war from both sides who for the most part really dont want to be there
During WW2 anyone would have chosen a quick death over the slow, torturous, inevitable death that awaited after becoming a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army.
@@pinkpenzu You clearly can’t distinguish between a directors fantasy and hard historical reality. The movie was beautifully shot and is in the top five greatest war films ever made.
Did Witt even fire one single bullet in this film? He certainly didn't kill a man. And in the end he got caught by a man with similar values but a man he couldn't not comprehend. Oh the humanity. This will always be my favourite movie of all time.
He didn't know the language, but he understood the message he was conveying: Witt raised his rifle because he was ready to die, despite this young Japanese soldier not wanting to have to kill him - Witt was a man who had seen both the good and bad in this world and he was ready to go.
@@NikoChristianWallenberg in the end, his salvation(his wife) became his torment even amongst the horrors of war. There's a message in there somewhere.
@@maryjeanhrbacek6255 his wife sent him the letter asking for a divorce to marry the air force pilot she met. That's right before he volunteers for the last patrol
Thank you for uploading and the subtitles. I always wondered what the Japanese soldier said in this scene. And while I was always going to watch it as soon as someone translated, there's yet a part of me that wishes I never knew.
So interesting. I took the tone and mannerism of the Japanese soldier as goading him to go for it. I don’t think Witt killed anyone during the whole war. If the Japanese soldier only knew. Dunno if Witt was just wanting to suicide himself. He saved his men. Mission accomplished. As a prisoner it would give the Japanese leverage. Letting himself get sacrificed, he pretty much give the Japanese nothing other than what was in his pockets.
Indeed, Niko. Some people think that something like this couldn't have happened, but especially among younger soldiers who were conscripted into the war and were there were there because they had been ordered to, you could certainly have found someone like this soldier here: they would have much preferred to have stayed home with their families without having to fight in a war (of which they didn't really know that much about, other than being told that the USA is their enemy). Scenes like this only show that that in the Japanese military there were humans - some terrible, but some were just ordinary people. Another good movie that shows this well is Letters from Iwo Jima.
You do realize what the Japanese often did to American soldiers they captured, don't you? Witt would have been unlikely to survive the "No quarter given" experience of being a prisoner of the Japanese, especially during the battles on Guadalcanal. And, if you were surrendering by yourself (not as a group in numbers), your chances of escaping imminent death were slim.
Yes but they were so obsessed with image of honor in ones self, they'd double cross, fake death, allow to be treated long enough to detonate a bomb, or stab one of the medics, doctors, dastardly really
Like the Europeans,Asians in the middle age, if you blame them you can blame your ancestors too, i’m latino mi race is mostly the result of mass rapes, where was the honor in that
This scene truly makes me think of the legendary scene in Saving Private Ryan after the Rangers have pushed on into the trenches after the beach and come across 2 soldiers in German uniforms who shout that they're not German and they're innocent. People don't know at the moment of watching that they're saying that because there are no subtitles. Same as here, you see him approaching him and calmy and emotionally asking Witt something, we do not know what, we assume it's just swearing and whatever, but it's really just a Japanese person who is just like Witt, who does not want to kill but end this war peacefully.
If you know anything about Spielberg and that movie, that's the irony-- those soldiers weren't German; they were speaking Hungarian and talking about how they were forced into that position.. truly tradgic.
For Long Time, I wonder what the Japanese Soldier said. Fortunately, in 2016 I met a Japanese Exchange Student and He translated this conversation for me. The Translation was almost the same with this one
Even if the Japanese officer wanted to take Witt alive It is doubtful that Witt would be treated fairly as a POW by the rest of the Japanese given how we see Americans mutilated earlier before the hill battle. Witt probably understood what was going to happen if he surrendered. A slow death or a quick one. Witt chose the latter.
At minute 1:41 you hear the ocean and Witt has found his calm. He is swimming. I’m his mind he is swimming and at minute 2:14 you hear a gunshot and the children are swimming without him.
No subtitles in the movie but you can hear in the Japanese soldiers voice he doesn't want to kill another soldier even though he just killed their men he obviously doesn't want to see any soldiers die that's my opinion after seeing the movie many times you can hear his desperation his sadness you don't need translation. 😢
Without subs I thought they were asking him to betray the others by telling where they are or something like that. Now I see I was wrong, and now I see why he did lift his rifle. He didn't understand also.
Besides the Japanese, NO words were said but I understood every bit of it. One of the most iconic and memorable death scenes ever captured on film. One of the most emotional times I have ever felt in my life every time I watch this Poem I feel like Witt had no intention to hurt those soldiers. It was just the action he needed to do to end his story peacefully with the same calm his mother felt at her death. Perfect call back and full circle to his story in the movie
3 года назад
What I like of this scene is that apparently it was Witt’s destiny to die in this war. So the universe made this happen by another pure soul, as Witt was.
There's a bit in the not-always-consistently-good Stargate TV series where Rodney McKay (the brilliant scientist character) contracts an ancient alien energy-virus, which is going to kill him, unless he manages to "transcend," through meditation, and evolve into a higher life form that no longer needs its physical body. He very nearly accomplishes it, at the end, before a plot-MacGuffin saves him. That was in 2006. They should have just (re)used this Caviezel performance; it's the same idea, but 20x better.
I'm pretty sure that's the whole point. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to be a soldier, he just wanted him to surrender so he didn't have to kill him. Most people in ww2 didn't want to kill someone.
@jameseckersley4926 No Japanese soldier saw surrender as an honorable option. They all went with the bushido code, which was to fight to the death for the most honor, and most Japanese soldiers saw themselves as samurai.
@nocturnalrecluse1216 what are you talking about? Even some kamikaze pilots didn't want to actually do it. A random young soldier who gets called up doesn't automatically believe in this honour system.
Did he prefer to go down fighting because he didn’t want the Japanese to torture him into talking or something? He’s just a private. He wouldn’t know much.
No, he did what he did (raised his rifle) because he was ready to die, being the philosophical man that he was. It wasn't because he detested the idea of being captured by the Japanese (Witt regarded the Japanese as just people like him): Witt was a man who had seen both the good and bad in the world and he was ready to let himself go.
