TORA! TORA! TORA!

US/Japan, 1970, 145 minutes, Colour.
Jason Robards, Martin Balsam, E. G. Marshall, Joseph Cotten, James Whitmore, George Macready and a large Japanese cast headed by Soh Yamamura, Tokahero Tamura.
Directed by Richard Fleischer (and Toshio Masuda and Kirifi Fukasuku).

Tora! Tora! Tora! was supposed to be the war film to end all war films, the most spectacular film ever made. It is not. Rather it is an interesting piece of co-operation between the U.S. and Japanese government and filmmakers in reconstructing the events of Pearl Harbour 1941, and what led up to the bombing on both sides.

The film is basically a reconstruction. It opens as documentary, characters being identified with name captions, places being similarly identified. There is constant change of location ? from Hawaii to Japan to Washington to Berlin. Objectivity seems to be the keynote. There is no special story of individuals involved in the events. The stars merely portray historical personages and are not overemphasised.

The second part of the film shows the attack. The audience is well prepared, sharing the American lack of readiness, the expert Japanese preparation and the inevitable mistakes and chances. The actual attack is quite spectacularly done. The film could have been inspired, but probably because of the quest for objectivity, it remains on the level of the interesting ? it is not really absorbing. The film has been criticised because it shows the Japanese as intelligent and well-drilled and briefed for the mission, while the Americans are seen as singularly inept. This is not necessarily SO. This could be blaming the Americans with the wisdom of hindsight. While the Americans were lackadaisical, they were not expecting such an attack in such a place and could not have been expected to make elaborate preparations.

1. Do you think the film was fair to both Americans and Japanese?

2. As you watched the film, did you feel you could begin to understand why the Japanese acted as they had and how the Americans were caught off guard?

3. Do you think the documentary style was best for this kind of film rather than concentrating on the story of one or two people involved in the same events? Did the documentary style give the impression of greater objectivity?

4. Why did the Japanese decide to bomb Pearl Harbour? Were officials unanimous in their decision?

5. Why were the Americans not ready? How easy is it to use hindsight to say they should have been prepared?

6. How much was due to chance and accidental incidents and how much to lackadaisical attitudes on the part of the Americans?

7. How different were the Japanese sailors and airmen? different from their American counterparts?

8. How realistic do you think the bombing sequences were? Were you impressed? What was the effect of having the flying instruction plane and the incoming U.S. B525 mixed up with the Japanese forces?

9. How remote did this film make Pearl Harbour and 1941? Did it seem like history or still an episode of our modern world?

10. Do you think the making of such a film, especially the Japanese American cooperation, contributes to world understanding and peace?