A strict adherent to the bushido code, his only sources of connection to the prisoners lie in the empathetic Lt. Col. John Lawrence, the only inmate fluent in Japanese, and the abrasive spokesman Gp.

Summoned to the military trial of the recently captured Major Jack Celliers, Yonoi is fascinated by his resilience and has him interned at the camp.

After the trial, Yonoi confides in Lawrence that he is haunted with shame due to his absence during the February 26 Incident, believing he should have died alongside the rebels and implying that his focus on honour stems from this.

Sensing a kindred spirit in Celliers, Yonoi's fascination grows into a romantic obsession: he treats him specially, watches him sleep, and repeatedly asks Hara about him in private.

When the inmates are made to fast as punishment for insubordination during the forced seppuku of a guard (Okura), Celliers sneaks in food.

That night, Celliers reveals to Lawrence that as a teenager, he betrayed his younger brother, long bullied for his hunchback, by refusing to spare him a humiliating and traumatizing initiation ritual at their boarding school.

The two argue over their withholding of information from one another before an enraged Yonoi orders the whole camp to form up outside the barracks, including the sick bay's ailing patients, resulting in one's death.

Expressing confusion over the harshness of his sentence given how commonplace his actions were among both sides of the war, he and Lawrence both conclude that while the Allies officially won, morally "we are all wrong."

David Bowie was cast as Jack Celliers after director Nagisa Ōshima saw him in a production of The Elephant Man on Broadway.

It was also Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano's debut movie acting role, having only been known up to that point as a comedian on TV variety shows in Japan.

The next year, Bowie invited Malcolm to join him on stage at Western Springs in Auckland for the Serious Moonlight Tour, where they released a dove together as a sign of peace.

The site's consensus states: "Worthy themes and strong performances across the board make Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence an impactful story about bridging cultural divides.

Little else in the film is so unaffected or clear.On the film's Japanese actors, Maslin wrote that the two main Japanese characters who have brought [Lawrence] to this understanding are Sergeant Hara, a brutal figure who taunts Lawrence while also admiring him, and Captain Yonoi, the handsome young camp commander, who has a fierce belief in the samurai code.

However, they can convey the complex affinity between captors and prisoners, a point that is made most touchingly in a brief postwar coda.Directors Akira Kurosawa and Christopher Nolan named Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as among their favorite films.