Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021) is Arthur Harari's war drama, available to watch online on iFILM. A young Japanese intelligence officer is dropped on a small Philippine island with a single order: never surrender, hold out until the army returns.

He takes it literally. By the time the fighting ends in the summer of 1945, Hiroo Onoda and a handful of men refuse to believe the leaflets, the loudspeakers, or the newspapers dropped from planes — to him it's all an enemy trick. What follows is nearly three decades in the undergrowth of Lubang: scavenging for food, clashing with villagers, losing comrades and his own grip on what is real.

Running close to three hours, the film moves slowly, across several languages, with two actors splitting the role of Onoda young and old. Harari paints him as neither madman nor saint — this is a study of how obedience to an order becomes one man's cage. The picture opened the Un Certain Regard lineup at Cannes. Stream Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle online on iFILM.