A hard-nosed sergeant's entire platoon is massacred in the Korean War. He and a Korean orphan he's unconsciously become attached to join up with another platoon headed by a rule-book lieutenant. They establish a base inside a Buddhist temple. The child is killed by a sniper, and the sergeant goes berserk, murdering a communist prisoner. Eventually, the temple is attacked, and only the sergeant and two others survive.
This film demonstrates one of Fuller's major preoccupations - war as a metaphor for daily life. Rarely has the sense of individual differences been captured so well in a story of opposing groups of men fighting for survival. The sense of disorder and chaos answers to Fuller's expressed view that there isn't, can't be, and shouldn't be any law in war. The narrative role actually played by the sergeant's helmet presages Fuller's frequent use of objects to signify a character's identity.