Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
French theatrical release poster
FrenchOnoda, 10 000 nuits dans la jungle
Directed byArthur Harari
Written by
  • Arthur Harari
  • Vincent Poymiro
  • Bernard Cendron (collaboration)
Produced byNicolas Anthomé
Starring
CinematographyTom Harari
Edited byLaurent Sénéchal
Music by
  • Sebastiano De Gennaro
  • Enrico Gabrielli
  • Andrea Poggio
  • Gak Sato
  • Olivier Marguerit
Production
companies
  • Bathysphere
  • TBC
Distributed by
  • Le Pacte (France)
  • Imagine (Belgium)
  • Elephant House (Japan)
  • REM (Germany)
  • Westec Media Limited (Cambodia)
Release dates
  • 7 July 2021 (2021-07-07) (Cannes)
  • 21 July 2021 (2021-07-21) (France)
  • 11 August 2021 (2021-08-11) (Belgium)
  • 8 October 2021 (2021-10-08) (Japan)
  • 2 June 2022 (2022-06-02) (Germany)
Running time
167 minutes
Countries
  • France
  • Japan
  • Germany
  • Belgium
  • Italy
  • Cambodia
Languages
  • Japanese
  • Filipino
Box office$193,000–$261,000 (France)

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (Japanese: ONODA 一万夜を越えて, Hepburn: Onoda: Ichiman'ya o Koete; lit."Onoda: Over ten thousand nights", French: Onoda, 10 000 nuits dans la jungle) is a 2021 war drama film directed by Arthur Harari and co-written with Vincent Poymiro, with the collaboration of Bernard Cendron. It is inspired by the life of Hiroo Onoda (Yuya Endo) a Japanese soldier who refused to believe that World War II had ended and continued to fight on a remote Philippine island until 1974.

It is an international co-production between France, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Cambodia. And was particularly inspired by Cendron and Gérard Chenu's 1974 biography Onoda, seul en guerre dans la jungle, Cendron's archives, and Harari's conversations with the author. Harari did not base it on Onoda's own memoir; he considers the film to be fiction inspired by history rather than a biographical book.

The film had its world premiere at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, on 7 July 2021. It was theatrically release in France on 21 July 2021, and in Japan on 8 October 2021. It was received with critical acclaim, winning Best Original Screenplay at the 47th César Awards.