This article considers the stylistic similarities between Mizoguchi Kenji's 1944 film Miyamoto Musashi and Japanese period films from the 1910s. If the latter was criticized by film critics in part for its lack of a closed meaning than ensures singular readings, why would such a film be acceptable during the wartime. I consider discourses about spectatorship during the wartime in Japan, when critics and authorities were well aware that spectator interpretations could make or break a film. I introduce some statements that insisted on the need to "train" spectators, and others that declared that wartime spectators were already well trained. I also look at some wartime films that included such training in their very form. My argument calls for a reconsideration of the role of film form and spectatorship in wartime propaganda.