What is the reason why Sam Peckinpah, the master of ``The Cross of Iron,'' threw himself into this work, rejecting the offers of ``Superman'' and ``King Kong''?

Peckinpah's style of madness, which is different from typical war movies, is terrifying.

Furthermore, essential to the story of this film is the thorough "madness" that emerges through Peckinpah's direction.

The film begins with a title sequence in which poignant black-and-white archival photographs are shown one after another, accompanied by children singing the German song "Little Hans," and the contrast between these photographs never fails to stir the viewer's heart.

The film opens with an extraordinary scale of combat action that Peckinpah has cultivated in his own life. Over 300 extras collide in hand-to-hand combat, and in explosion scenes woven with an astonishing amount of explosives, soldiers' bodies and pieces of flesh fly through the air in slow motion with detailed cuts. The extreme conditions of the soldiers who face the fear of approaching death and endure while losing their minds and bodies in the trenches are also brutal, and James Coburn's extraordinary "laughter" sticks in your ears and never leaves your ears even after the screening.

In this way, "The Cross of Iron" is full of the awesomeness of Peckinpah's once-in-a-lifetime Being There to "portray war," in which he poured everything he had into the story. We can't keep up with it just by understanding the story with our heads. Sitting in the theater, we are constantly bathed in the blast of sound, the smoke, and the blood. It can be said to be an experiential movie that takes in the situation, the madness, with raw sensitivity. Rather than feeling moved or excited by this film, we may come face to face with ourselves, or the true nature of humanity.

"My Village Was a Battlefield" and "Honoo 628" depict the tragedy of the Eastern Front