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I Fear All We Have Done Was to Awaken a Sleeping Giant

Martin Asiner | jersey city, nj United States | 10/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are not many movies that portray the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as anything but what it was--a carefully planned massive assault on a totally unprepared United States naval base. TORA TORA TORA is not Hollywood's typical war movie that places character exposition at the forefront. Here directors Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku for the Japanese and Richard Fleischer for the United States detail a film that is more documentary than character driven. Yet, despite this sense of hidden-camera reality that focuses on all ranks from admiral to seaman, the actors succeed in infusing the film with a feeling that on both sides there were no heroes or villans. In fact, if there is any villainy, it is not the attacking Japanese who must wear the mantle of evil but rather the slipshod arrogance of those who were entrusted to defend Pearl Harbor against just the kind of annihilation that struck on that Sunday morning in December, 1941. The Japanese side is told primarily through the perspective of Admiral Yamamoto (So Yamamura), who was in overall command of the attack fleet, and Lt. Commander Fuchida (Takahiro Tamura), who was one of the Zero pilots on the first attack wave. Yamamoto is a cautious commander, one who has no political agenda, but is determined to carry out his objective exactly even if it means not taking advantage of unexpected opportunities to wreak further destruction on American ships. He will preserve his fleet above all else. Fuchida has a much more narrow view; when he sees that a second attack wave is needed to finish the job, he is appalled that Yamamoto has instead ordered the fleet to return to Japan. Neither of them is presented as the stereotyped buck-toothed sabre-rattling Jap so often presented in a previous generation's war movie. Each in his own way is strictly business. The American side is anchored by Martin Balsam as Admiral Kimmel and Richard Anderson as Captain Earle. Kimmel is a competent commander who discovers too late that bureaucratic bungling of misguided messages can have the most tragic of consequences. When the attack begins, he is stunned but quickly organizes what defenses he has. The fall guy is Earle, who might have gained a precious few hours of advanced warning had he heeded the implications of frantic radio messages suggesting an attack was imminent. Yet, Earle is a one-dimensional stick man who collectively symbolizes the head-in-the-sand myopia that then afflicted US military intelligence about the oncoming Rising Sun whirlwind. TORA TORA TORA is a film of rapidly shifting points of view. The first three quarters is a microscopic analysis of the events preceding the attack. The Japanese are seen as supremely confident that they will achieve total surprise. In fact, when the first Zero fighters are in view of Pearl, they are astounded to note that not one shot has been fired at them. An American radar station operator notes that his radar screen shows a massive inflight of unidentified planes, but a call to his superiors results in his being told not to worry. The American fleet and dozens of combat planes are neatly stacked in rows, just waiting to be picked off. The Americans, by contrast, are blithely oblivious to what now seems like unmistakable warnings of looming disaster. In Washington, Japanese ambassadors Nomura (Shogo Shimada) and Kurusu (Hisao Toake) wait patiently outside the door of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, knowing full well what was then occuring on the other end of the world. For the briefest moment, Nomura is seen as a man who is profoundly saddened that he is a forced puppet mouthing words of a futile peace. All of the behind the scenes style of film making is needed as a segue to the catastrophic air assault on Pearl. The attack, which lasts for an extended thirty minutes, is stunningly effective, even more so than the computer-enhanced graphics of the recent remake with Ben Affleck. Essentially, the Japanese airplanes swoop down and destroy both docked ship and arrayed plane. The return fire is piecemeal. Here and there is a spirited ra-ta-ta by a lone America gunner. The surprise is complete. Three battleships are sunk, and nearly every plane is destroyed on the ground. These scenes of carnage are difficult to watch, yet they serve to remind us that eternal vigilance is needed for a proud country to survive. The dramatic focus of the movie is not on the destruction of the Pacific fleet at all, but surprisingly on the Japanese view of that destruction. The Japanese had intended to declare war first, and then to attack, but a bungling on their part reversed this order. A despondent Admiral Yamamoto concludes the film by noting to his otherwise jubilantly cheering subordinates: "I can hardly imagine a way that is more likely to infuriate the Americans. I fear that all we have done was to awaken a sleeping giant." TORA TORA TORA is unique among war films in that it shows that even in war, there are men of good conscience who are caught up in matters over which they have very little control."