Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

The film deals with the relationships among four men in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War — Jack Celliers (Bowie), a rebellious prisoner with a guilty secret from his youth in New Zealand; Captain Yonoi (Sakamoto), the young camp commandant; Lieutenant Colonel John Lawrence (Conti), a British officer who has lived in Japan and speaks Japanese fluently; and Sergeant Hara (Kitano), with whom Lawrence develops a peculiar friendship.

Like Celliers, Yonoi, too, is tormented by guilt. Having been posted to Manchuria previously, he was unable to be in Tokyo with his Army comrades, the "Shining Young Officers" of Japan's February 26 Incident, a 1936 military coup d'etat. When the coup fails, the young army officers are executed. Yonoi regrets not being able to share their patriotic sacrifice. Jack Celliers had betrayed his deformed younger brother while the two of them were attending boarding school. Although Celliers confesses this only to Lawrence, Captain Yonoi senses in Celliers a kindred spirit. He wants to replace Hicksley with Celliers as spokesman for the prisoners.