UNDER THE FLUTTERING MILITARY FLAG

A Japanese widow fights to clear her soldier husband of a war crime.

In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 96 minutes. Not rated (wartime violence). At the Screening Room, Varick and Canal streets, through Thursday.

FORGET “Pearl Harbor.” If you’re looking for a worthwhile movie about World War II, try “Under the Fluttering Military Flag,” a 1972 drama by veteran Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku that is only now being released in New York.

It’s been 26 years since the end of fighting, but the widow of a Japanese soldier is still working to clear his name. He was executed at the end of the war, allegedly for desertion.

“I won’t give up,” she vows. “If I do, my husband can never rest in peace.”

The widow contacts four vets from her husband’s regiment in hopes of finding out the truth about his death and, in the process, qualify for a pension the government has denied her.

Shot in sepia, Fukasaku’s film uses vivid, sometimes brutal, flashbacks to tell its story. Still, the director never resorts to cheap tricks to press viewers’ emotional buttons.

He presents the story honestly and matter-of-factly, but you can’t help feeling for this lonely woman.