Dramatising the island

The main issue arising from dramatising the events on Lubang island is the lack of actual recorded dialogue and events, as well as how they kept motivated enough to hold out on the island for 30 years.

Throughout his time on the island Onoda was determined to carry out his secret mission on the island, to destroy Lubang’s airfield and pier – initially this was to halt the allied invasion however throughout the 30 years he spent on the island he constantly dreamed of carrying out his only orders received during the war (as Lubang was his first real assignment). And whilst the facilities were far too heavily fortified for him to destroy with his limited supplies this goal was constantly in the back of his mind and allowed him to focus on survival, observation and the harassment of those he believed to be the allies.
This idea of Onoda’s devotion to honour and carrying out his duty has prompted me to draw parallels between the actions taken on Lubang island and Bushido, the ‘way of the samurai’ which represents their strict code of honour and values.

“Being a samurai is all about selfless service and if the lord abuses the servant, it is no longer a situation of service; it becomes the situation of a victim. It is never acceptable for a samurai to be a victim. It is never acceptable to allow a lord to abuse you or rob you of your dignity. In such a situation, it is acceptable to walk away.” - Alexei Maxim Russell, Instruction Manual for the 21st Century Samurai

Onoda’s belief in this is one of the main reasons why, in the face of the Imperial army turning it’s back on Lubang, the garrison and their dwindling supplies – Onoda still relentlessly carried out his orders without question; and is why to this day he is regarded as ‘the last samurai.’

As for specific scenes, my research has uncovered many of the ‘signs’ that Onoda found on the flyers dropped by B-17’s after the war in the hopes of bringing him out of the jungle. His extensive training from the Nakano School of counterintelligence made him highly suspicious of enemy propaganda and took the poor printing quality and grammatical errors in the written Kanji as signs that this was an attempt to trick him into surrendering. This new light on why he decided to stay in the jungle has opened up many possibilities of scenes in which they are trying to discern the truth of these messages.

Finally, and perhaps the most engaging methods I am able to use after my research is the emotional relationship between Onoda, Shimada and Kozuka. Onoda was heavily reliant on both of them as well as his responsibilities to lead them to keep him going through the 30 years, with Shimada’s motto
“Don’t worry, it’ll all be back in our hands tomorrow” keeping the group in high spirits about the winning of the war they still believed they were fighting. In an encounter with local fisherman Shimada was shot in the leg, in which Onoda nursed him back to health with limited medical supplies – however the following year Shimada was killed.
Following this, two years before his eventual surrender Kozuka – a man Onoda could not have survived in the wild without – was killed in another altercation with local police, and ultimately the loss of his men, and his friends led to the loss of his fighting spirit.