Fires on the Plain

In February 1945, the Japanese on Leyte are demoralized and cut off from support. Private Tamura, plagued by tuberculosis, is treated as a burden and ordered to commit suicide if he cannot be readmitted to a field hospital. A sympathetic soldier secretly gives him several yams to keep him alive.

Tamura sneaks back into the crowded field hospital only to be admonished and sent away as a reject. As Allied shelling begins, medical staff abandon the patients and the hospital is hit and destroyed. Tamura flees into the chaos, looking back at the fallen with a numb, unhelpful gaze.

He discovers a deserted village on the coast and finds a pile of dead Japanese soldiers. A young Filipino couple arrives by canoe and retrieves salt hidden under a floorboard in a hut; Tamura's presence triggers a scream from the girl. He lowers his rifle but shoots the girl, and the boy escapes; he takes the salt and leaves, dropping his gun into a lake.

Tamura and three Japanese soldiers next encounter more smoke, though they misinterpret it as signal fires. They learn their army is ordered to Palompon for evacuation to Cebu; Tamura asks to accompany them. One soldier notices Tamura's heavy bag and shares some of his salt, revealing camaraderie in desperation.

They join a long, ragged column of starving soldiers heading toward Palompon. Nagamatsu and Yasuda from Tamura's unit are among them; Yasuda, wounded, tries to trade tobacco for food with Nagamatsu. When they reach a heavily traveled road, they decide to wait for night to cross, but American forces ambush them and a few survivors flee.

An American jeep arrives as the column moves forward. Tamura prepares to surrender, but a Filipino woman shoots another Japanese who is attempting to surrender, and the Americans are unable to stop her in time.

Tamura wanders alone and meets a man who dies suddenly in front of him, whose body Tamura then takes for his shoes. Later he encounters a crazed, exhausted soldier who is eating his own excrement and tells Tamura that he could eat Tamura after he dies.

Tamura reunites with Nagamatsu and Yasuda, who claim they've survived on monkey meat and hide in the forest. Nagamatsu goes out to hunt more monkeys. When Tamura mentions he has a grenade, Yasuda steals it.

Tamura and Nagamatsu begin to suspect that the infamous 'monkey meat' is actually human flesh, a realization that amplifies their fear. Nagamatsu warns that they would be dead if they do not resort to cannibalism, and Tamura grows increasingly disgusted by the choices around him.

Days pass and water becomes the scarce currency of survival. Nagamatsu stakes out the only water source, while tensions rise among the group. Yasuda tries to bargain for water but is shot by Nagamatsu and begins butchering his body for meat.

Tamura confronts Nagamatsu and shoots him to end the cannibalistic nightmare. He begins to move toward the 'fires on the plains' in search of a semblance of normal life. Filipinos shoot at him as he advances, and a final bullet hits Tamura, collapsing him lifeless on the ground.