Fires on the Plain (野火, Nobi) is a 2014 Japanese war film written, produced, directed, edited, co-photographed and starring Shinya Tsukamoto.

Fires on the Plain takes place during the final days of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines on the island of Leyte, after the American army had returned.

The Filipinos, after suffering a brutal Japanese occupation, are in little mood to show mercy on their former tormentors, and light the titular bonfires for communication.

He sees a pile of Japanese corpses nearby, but investigates regardless; he finds a cache of salt hidden beneath a floorboard, but is found out by two Filipino civilians.

After hearing a shot, Tamura chases after Nagamatsu; he sees that he had fired at a fleeing Filipino civilian, and that the "monkeys" he had been hunting were other humans.

Tamura claims to awaken at an American field hospital in his notes and not have remembered what happened after shooting Nagamatsu, but dry heaves at the horrible memory regardless.

[1] He said that even his first movie, the 1989 cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Iron Man, was influenced by Fires on the Plain; they both feature "normal" people who are drastically shaped by their environment.

He praised Tsukamoto's work and noted he seemed to be inspired by Terrence Malick's style of portraying death and terror on-screen in a hallucinatory, terrifying fashion.

[6] Xan Brooks of The Guardian wrote that the movie successfully makes its point that "war is hell, particularly if you are fighting on the losing side" and called the film "brilliantly bonkers".

[7] Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter opined that Fires on the Plain felt like a "relentlessly cruel and gory horror film" and further stated, "it's not an easy watch but a highly rewarding one that most festival audiences will be anxious to sit through, thanks to Tsukamoto's reputation.

"[8] While Pierce Conran of Screen Anarchy felt that the film could in no way match the previous 1959 adaptation of the novel, he still praised its "frenetic and almost crude aesthetic" and effective mix of "shaky, high-contrast photography, boundless psychological despair and liberal doses of cheap but stomach churning gore.