During World War 2, training films were made by practically every country involved so that their soldiers can learn various battlefield tactics, among other things. I've seen tons of these films by now, but this one is unique because it shows how to do something that would otherwise be simple: stay alive. In the middle of a war, this is easier said than done. Because this film is really short, there's no actual storyline, but there are certain important things that happen throughout. We first see an American soldier get shot at by two Japanese marksmen, allowing him to pinpoint their location and shoot back. He manages to get both of them to surrender, and starts talking to them about how they mercilessly killed 10 men under his command a while back. The japanese riflemen say how american soldiers are very stupid, as they essentially killed themselves with their dumb behavior. The american doesn't like to hear this, and insists that all the ones they killed were good soldiers. The japanese retort that if they were, they'd still be alive. We're then shown a flashback of how the american soldiers in question were killed because of careless mistakes. These include an infantryman sticking his head above the trunk of a felled tree to scout the area, a soldier taking cover in a shrub all by himself (the sniper saw him run inside it), and a soldier's rifle having a freshly cleaned bayonet on the muzzle that creates an obvious reflection. Some of the soldiers have more common sense, and the japanese sniper is able to tell the difference between a smart one and a dumb one. A smart soldier will dive into a ditch to take cover and crawl his way to a new position, emerging at a new location. A dumb one will take cover and then stick his head up in the same place where he just was. After the japanese snipers tell the american how they managed to kill his comrades so easily, they are marched off into captivity. That's basically all there is to say about this short. I thought it was ok for its length because it shows how you are a target on the battlefield pretty much all the time, but there are some absurd things about it. For one thing, japanese soldiers during the war were known to be absolutely fanatical in their devotion to kill americans. Surrounding a group of german soldiers would make them give up, but the japanese would almost always prefer to die fighting rather than surrender. I guess the two snipers shown in the film don't care about disgracing Hirohito's ideals. Furthermore, I thought it was pretty stupid how one of the japanese soldiers was able to speak english, even if most of it isn't grammatically correct. To summarize, this short did not disappoint me, even though I didn't have many expectations.
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