The film opens with Tsuruya, a modern-day rugby player, getting clobbered on the field and waking up in 1943, in uniform, and about to ship off. Soon this Connecticut Yankee-like device disappears as Tsuruya loses his memories of the posh 1990s. Instead he discovers the company of fellow rugby enthusiasts who all hail from Japan's elite universities. Aihara, the son of a wealthy businessman, rejects his privileged birth and enlists as a private, Katsumura just married his first love, and Akutagawa leaves behind his mother and his dying sweetheart to serve as a pilot. With the exception of an evil, perverted lieutenant who encourages his troops to rape nurses, most of the characters view the war as a big mistake. Yet they fight for their women, and for their friends.