Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
The Second World War was the most destructive conflict in human history; it changed and took the lives of millions of people and it fundamentally changed the geography of the world, some only temporarily but for others, the effects are still somewhat felt to this day. This perhaps explains why filmmakers often gravitate towards it to tell particularly stories.
I say this as a means to adjust the tone of this feature somewhat as we move away from the over the top action packed bonanza of Where Eagles Dare, and move into slightly more serious territory for the rest of this series, beginning with the 1970 epic Tora! Tora! Tora!.
The film is a detailed and exhaustive account of the people and events that would ultimately lead to the Japanese attack on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th, 1941.
Again this is another film that my dad introduced me to (if you need an old war film to watch ask your dads, they know all the classics) and I’m glad he did because this is another one of my favourites.
Before I get into the film, let’s take a quick trip to fun fact land. Ah, fun fact land where the trees are full of fun facts. (I’m not going to be able to make many jokes in this series so please indulge my silliness for the moment).
The film was groundbreaking for the time in that it was a US-Japanese co-production, with Richard Fleischer directing the American segments while Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku helm the Japanese segments.
But here’s the real fun fact, Fukasaku and Masuda were brought in by 20th Century Fox to direct the Japanese segments after they had to fire the original director who had spent two years helping to develop the project. Who was the original director you ask? None other than Akira Kurosawa, the man whose name is now synonymous with cinematic excellence, and he apparently couldn’t adjust to the pressures of working on an American studio film.
The film’s large American/Japanese cast is not made up of many stars from the era, a deliberate move on the part of the filmmakers to focus more on the story. The only name in the credits that I knew was Jason Robards and I imagine that only a handful of you reading know who he is.
Regardless of the lack of star quality, the acting is pretty decent across the board with the Japanese side providing the most interesting characters such as Admiral Yamamoto who utters the now famous “we have awoken a sleeping giant” line.
This is a film of two halves and I’ll forgive people if they skip over the first half (although I’d rather you didn’t) which is largely scenes of diplomats and officers talking about the possibility of war breaking out between the US and Japan, and Japanese pilots training and such, but it’s all just build up to the brilliance of the second half.
The second half of the film, depicting the attack on Pearl Harbour by Japanese forces, truly has to be seen to believed, with the filmmakers wisely sticking to using real planes and stuntmen to depict the chaos and terror of that day, with only some (very obvious) model work used in the sequences.
The stunts themselves are impressive as they are scary, with planes smashing into each other and the stunt performances frantically trying to run for their lives, it’s a truly spectacular sequence that Michael Bay tried and couldn’t quite recreate in his 2001 film Pearl Harbor. It’s the kind of moment that you wouldn’t really seen done today, and it would definitely wouldn’t be done without heavy use of CGI.
On a side note, the attack sequence does have possibly one of the most inappropriate moments of comedy I’ve ever seen in a war film. Just keep an eye out for the Naval officer saluting the flag who, after a Japanese Zero plane flies overhead, says “I want that pilot’s number” only to see it drop a bomb in front of him. It’s just a little moment that always makes me chuckle, even though given what’s being depicted, I really shouldn’t.
I’ll admit that this film will not be for everyone and the slow pace of the first half will put some off, but stick with Tora! Tora! Tora!, mainly for the second half depicting the attack on Pearl Harbor, as it’s quite possibly one of the greatest battle sequences ever depicted in a film.
Originally published March 14, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
