if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A lyrical reflection on WWII, Japanese director Keisuke Kinoshita's magnum opus TWENTY-FOUR EYES is prominently, steeped in his humanistic take on the solemn state of affairs, entrusts a good- natured school teacher Hisako Oishi (Takamine) as the cynosure, and the title is a metonymy for the 12 first-grade pupils who grow up under her auspices through the turbulent years from 1928 to 1946 in a bucolic Shodo Island. In 1928, Hisako is the new teacher of the village school and in charge of 12 first-graders (7 girls and 5 boys), she wears a suit (instead of a kimono) and commutes by a bicycle, regarded as too modern in others' provincial eyes, but in fact it is nothing but being pragmatic. Radiating a cordial devotion to each of her pupils (a roll call sequence points up their strong bond which would sustain through the shifting sands of kismet), the young Hisako consolidates the mutual affections through folk songs and Kinoshita hammers home to viewers that those kids' innocent visages can soften any impervious hearts, which will become his stock-in-trade in the subsequent jeremiad.Incapacitated by a jejune prank, Hisako's condition means she cannot ride a bicycle when one of her tendons is broken, so she accepts to be transferred to a nearby school for older students and promises that they will reunite in 6th grade, the touching farewell scene hits the mark of poignancy after a preceding snippet where the 12 tots play truant to visit Hisako in her home on foot. Then the time-line swiftly jumps to 5 years later, in 1933, a remarkable feat should be credited to the casting director, who has gathered the group of 12 six-graders possessing a stunning resemblance of their younger archetypes. Hisako gets married, while the teacher-student dyad becomes ever closer, extrinsic forces begin to assail the individuals: one girl must take on the duty of rearing up her new-born baby sister after her mother passed away, and a double whammy befalls when the said baby also dies, instead of returning her to the school, her father decides to send her away to work as a waitress in a restaurant; similarly another girl unwillingly withdraws from the class when it is her turn to assume the role as the family cook; for boys, that is another story, indoctrinated by the ultra-nationalism all the rage, they are hot to trot to volunteer as soldiers to Hisako's utter dismay, who resolutely values human lives more than any ideological fanaticism, after the school principal reprimands her for her "coward" and dangerous thoughts, a disillusioned Hisako also parts company with her lofty vocation. A fast forward to 1941, pupils grows up into adults, to whom Hisako stills holds very dear, and herself is a mother of three. The ongoing WWII conscripts all the militia, a harrowing tête-à-tête with a tuberculosis-inflicted former student tellingly conveys a pandemic hardship and dread hovering above each household. Personal tragedies will strike Hisako one after another, but those who survives must go on with their lives. Another five years go by, in 1946, after the damning war fizzles out, Hisako resumes her job and tearfully finds out among her new pupils there are offspring of her endearing first first-graders. A celebration organized by the remaining 14-eyes, including a pair of blind ones, brings them altogether, there will be tears, fond reminiscences, but also signifies a brighter future ahead, no doubt Kinoshita is a maestro of emotional manipulation but he has notch it up without betraying any trace of affectation, and the film's ultimate confluence really packs a punch to our tear gland. Also, sterling children performances are cogently elicited through Kinoshita's orchestration, sometimes to a fault of immoderation (with a combo of watery eyes and plaintive dirges), but as a whole, it is a pretty amazing achievement; in the central stage, Hideko Takamine superbly sinks her teeth into a character laden with a gaping age range, and her personable charm and sincere timber thrust an irresistible impact to our likings. Typically shot at a remove with a ritualistic respect to its characters and milieu, and forfeits any idea of employing front-line bombardments to mess with our sensorium, TWENTY-FOUR EYES is a potent tearjerker illumining with a sagacious anti-war message, but also an ode to the unflagging strength inside an ordinary woman, the very rudimentary but foremost essence that makes us a decent human being.

24 eyes is based on a novel that was written in 1952 by Sakae Tsuboi. It's a story about the life of a school teacher in three different time period (1928 to 1947) of Japan, namely pre- war period, during war, and post war Japan. Sakae was also born in Shodo-shima island like the main character of this movie Ms. Ooishi (Hideko Takamine). The movie has a strong anti-war theme to it as well as showing how tough life was when Japan was still a third world country.In 1928 new school teacher named Ooishi (her first name is never mentioned in the movie) comes to the satellite school in Shodo-shima island, where there are 12 children. The place is a real country side and Ms Ooishi has a problem with the local customs, but she try's to be a good teacher. One day the children plays a prank and Ms. Ooishi falls into a hole dug by the students. She severs her Achilles tendon and has to take a long leave of absence. But the children wanting to see her travels a long way to see her, braving hunger and loneliness. Ms. Ooishi recovers, but soon she is assigned to the main school. Due to depression, many of her former students has to quit school and go to work. Ms. Ooishi gets married, but she quits being a teacher saying she hates the brain washing pro military education. War starts and many of her students and even her husband dies in the war. Long war ends and Ms. Ooishi returns to the satellite school. Many of her students are the children of her former students. As she gives roll calls, memory hits her hard, and she starts crying. Children not knowing the reason, call her cry baby teacher. Soon old students suggests a class reunion. Her old students, now grown adult gives Ms. Ooishi a bicycle like the one she used to ride to school. Ms. Ooishi cry's again seeing her old students once again.The movie won the Golden Globe award's best foreign movie, and also won the first place in Japanese movie magazine, surpassing Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai that came out the same year.Movie tells the life of children living in the country, but it also shows how war affected their lives. In the 1930s, Japan was trying to become one of the great nations. Their role model were United States, France, England, Dutch, and Germany. They saw that other great nations were using colonization to expand their empire, and decided to create their own empire in the name of Great Asian Co-prosperity Region. Japan won the Russo Japanese war and was big headed about their military might. All this worked for Japan to charge head in into militarism. While the Japanese navy who had their over seas envoy knew the foolishness of fighting the allied force, the army headed by Tojo insisted on taking the country to war which had deadly consequence for Japan and its people. The movie shows how very ordinary people got entangled in the tides of time, and young and impressionable people went willingly to war thinking it was patriotism. Now China who was on the receiving end during this war is only a hair trigger away from making the same mistake.What is most striking about the movie is the innocence people had at the time. Despite their hard life they weren't crooked, or violent. Each character in this movie had an endearing qualities. Keisuke Kinoshita who was perhaps Japan's first gay director was a master at depicting people in their family settings. Hideko Takamine marries the assistant director of this movie Zenzo Matsuyama a year after this movie was made.All this makes this one of a kind memorable movie of all time. Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it.

Mostly unknown and frequently dismissed in the West, this film is often considered by the Japanese to be one of their very best films, if not their best. I concur with the Japanese. I can understand the issues people have with it, namely that it is overly sentimental, but I think it mostly earns the tears that are shed over it. It's a film in the classic teacher genre, like Goodbye Mr. Chips. Hideko Takamine plays Hisako Oishi, a young woman who begins the movie as a first grade teacher on a small island in 1928. Being a small population, she ends up staying with the same students for several years. The film ends in the 1950s, so you kind of know what will probably happen to her male students, and what she and her female students will have to experience. It may be somewhat predictable, but it's incredibly heartbreaking. The film is beautifully made, and filled with Japanese folk songs (strangely, the score of the film is made up of a bunch of Western music, including "Bonnie Annie Laurie" and "There's No Place Like Home"; it's definitely a flaw). Takamine, who starred in several Mikio Naruse films around the same time, is exceptional.

It was a pleasure for me to see this lovely movie, a film I've really wished to see in the last four years but I couldn't do it until today. I heard about this movie when I lived in Japan and visited Shodoshima island, where "Eiga Mura" (Cinema Village), the place this film was made, can still be visited and the atmosphere of the past can be enjoyed. To be honest, I must say that "Nijushi no hitomi" wasn't for me the "exceptional film" I expected to see, but anyway it has been a pleasant experience. The life of the rural teacher, from the start of her career (in the mid 20's) to the time she retakes her teaching position after having become a widow (in the 40's, after the end of WWII), is an interesting guide to discover the traditional life and mentalities in the small islands of Seto (Japan Inland Sea). A good point for this film: it is usually said that this is an "anti-war" film. Well, it is true that the teacher shows a clear position against the wars Japan was involved (the war against China and the later Pacific War against the USA), but this film mustn't be considered as a pacifist pamphlet: the honest position of the teacher against the war is just one more detail in this complete description of how life should be in rural Japan during those difficult prewar, war and postwar years. A film that should be shown in every school around the world.