Corporal Tomotaka Akiba, now an actor playing a comedic caricature of a Japanese holdout on stage, tells Sakie that he remembers a sergeant being shot for stealing potatoes from the military supply, but is not certain if it was Sgt.

2nd Lieutenant Tadahiko Ohashi, now a high school literature teacher, tells Sakie that information was disclosed after the war that Major Senda, Division Staff Officer, had ordered the killing of a captured Australian pilot by 2nd Lieutenant Goto, but Goto merely repeatedly injures the prisoner until an M. P. is ordered to shoot the prisoner.

Goto, left traumatized by the incident, had become increasingly hostile and had forced his subordinates into hard labor and had hoarded their rations, so Sgt.

Sakie returns to Terajima, who admits that his previous story was a lie but explains that Goto had refused to believe that the war was over and had ordered a new offensive.

[1] According to Mark Schilling, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun received critical praise both in Japan and abroad for its "Rashomon-like story line and brutal realism".

[4] Tom Mes of Midnight Eye called it a powerful anti-war drama and one of Fukasaku's "most uncompromising films" for directly laying bare the numerous negative side effects of Japan's economic miracle.

[6] Praising Under the Flag of the Rising Sun as the best Fukasaku film he has seen, Glenn Erickson of DVD Talk wrote that by cutting right to the heart of the issue and "saying that looking for honor and righteousness in war deeds is an exercise in futility" it comes off as an alternate history of Japan and its 'Official Success Story'.

He also praised Fukasaku's "half-documentary feel", with characters introduced via freeze frames and title cards and flashbacks being mostly in black and white, as much more successful than in the director's later yakuza films.