Tora! Tora! Tora! [Blu-ray] [1970]

To many sub titles but overall great film

20th Century Fox's genuinely spectacular account of the attack on Pearl Harbor told from both the American and Japanese viewpoints was possibly in real terms an even bigger financial disaster for the studio than Cleopatra: even by latter-period roadshow standards, reminding American audiences of the incredible catalogue of blunders and incompetence that led to the Day of Infamy at a time when they were in the midst of another war in Asia (and one that was not going well) seems like business decision making at its most kamikaze. The film has probably made more money out of being carved up for stock footage than it ever did in the cinema, featuring prominently in Midway, Pearl, Australia, the TV version of From Here To Eternity and both The Winds of War and War and Remembrance among others.Like Cleopatra, it was a troubled production: Akira Kurosawa worked on the Japanese side of the film for months but delivered only one brief scene in the finished film before being replaced by two more special effects friendly directors (Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku) while on the American side Richard Fleischer relied on Ray Kellog and Robert Enrietto to shoot much of the spectacular finale. To add to their woes, several politicians complained about the use of Naval and military personnel and the aircraft carrier Yorktown in the film, one even going so far as to try to get a change in the law to prevent filmmakers being allowed to use them in the future, with the studio having to take out adverts in newspapers during filming to reassure the public the film wasn't anti-American but a reminder of the need for constant vigilance. The critics weren't kind and, to cap it all, the film's losses led to studio head Richard D. Zanuck being fired by his own father Darryl F. Zanuck, who would in turn be forced out of the studio a few months later.From the last days when films were consciously visually designed for the Scope screen, it is mounted on a scale that would be inconceivable today - what Pearl Harbor did with CGi it did with real ships and aircraft - with a tight, focused script that dispenses with fictional sub-plots (no Ben Affleck winning the Battle of Britain single-handed here) in favour of absolute historical accuracy. Seen entirely from the military and political mindset, it has the edge on most cinematic exercises in battlefield history through the conviction of its direction, particularly the visually impressive Japanese sequences, and of its playing. With the exception of Soh Yamamura and E.G. Marshall, most of the top-liners are barely in the film, but the large ensemble cast copes surprisingly well with the task of having to embody attitudes and impart information rather than working on clearly defined characters, adding the colour as they find it in the gaps. Perhaps most surprising is the incredible degree of tension the film manages to achieve in the run-up to the attack despite the inevitability of the outcome. When it finally comes, the special effects are among the best ever seen on the screen. Jerry Goldsmith's score is also a major plus, relentlessly building menace and tension as the film races toward the inevitable.While the previous DVD issue was pretty threadbare, the Cinema Reserve edition has a number of features covering both the making of the film and the real attack itself, although a 20-minute featurette from the first US DVD release but dropped from the original PAL release, Day of Infamy, has still not been included (it can be found on the US two-disc version, however).Fox's Region A, B and C Blu-Ray offers both the 145-minute US version and the 149-minute Japanese version, which gives the main directorial credit to Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku and adds two scenes that really should have stayed in the international version: one a very solemn sequence where a minister prepares Admiral Yamamoto for a ritual meeting with the Emperor about the impending war all too aware that both men opposed it and are reluctant to fulfil their ceremonial roles while another features two Japanese galley cooks talking about crossing the international date line, the consequences of which only became clear in the aftermath of the attack. It also features all the extras from the two-disc DVD, including the Richard Fleischer/Stuart Galbreith audio commentary that isn't mentioned on the packaging and the historical featurette Day of Infamy that wasn't included on the international DVD releases as well as 91-minute and 22-minute documentaries on the making of the film, 10 Movietone newsreel extracts dealing with the attack and its aftermath, stills galleries and a fullframe theatrical trailer. It's easily the best home video presentation of the film to date.

‘Tora Tora Tora’ cinema-released in 1970 is beyond dispute the best film ever made about the Japanese Navy’s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, incomparably superior to the juvenile, toe-curling 2001 embarrassment ‘Pearl Harbor’ directed by Michael Bray and ‘starring’ (if such a word can be used) the unfortunate Ben Afflick.TTT adopts a meticulous documentary style and tells the story from both US and Japanese perspectives in two separate and eventually interlocking narratives, deploying a large cast of characters but no obvious ‘stars’ to focus the sympathies of the audience. The Japanese viewpoint is told by Japanese actors speaking Japanese and directed by Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku (Akira Kurosawa was initially engaged for the job, but worked too slowly and proved too much of a control freak, so was replaced). The American narrative is directed by Richard Fleischer. Caution: the first two thirds of the film may not appeal to viewers seeking only the excitement and titillation of combat action scenes, as the 18-month diplomatic build-up to the Japanese attack is chronicled with intelligence and fine detail. This background however serves to build the tension for the final reel very effectively, and places the action against a deeper perspective.The scene of the actual attack lasts only 30-minutes, but soaked up the majority of the film’s $25million budget, an unprecedented cinematic extravagance in 1970. As other reviewers have pointed out, there was no CGI in 1970: real aircraft and real ships were used (or the next-best thing: realistic 50-foot scale replicas). Mock dogfights were flown by real pilots in real vintage P40s and AT6 Texans ‘enhanced’ to make them as close as possible in appearance to Japanese naval aircraft, and the carnage on the USN capital ships and the USAAF bases during the attack was created with real explosions and real danger to the stuntmen, several of whom were killed or injured during the filming. This long air-raid scene still looks absolutely stunning and utterly convincing, though being 1970 you don’t see the horrific injuries detailed close-up as you might in a more recent production such as Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’.Due to this profligacy of spend on visual spectacle, TTT didn’t break even for the studio on initial release but the film’s reputation has grown over the years. It’s a movie with a script so intelligent, with a narrative so well-crafted and edited, that you can watch it again and again and each time gain a deeper understanding of the complex historical perspective. The only mild criticism levelled at the film is that the Japanese treachery is whitewashed to a degree, with Hirohito’s direct culpability airbrushed out as he was at the time of filming still constitutional monarch in the by-then reconstructed and democratic Japan, and this criticism does hold merit but does not take away from the power of the film.The 2012 Blu-Ray from Fox Searchlight is the best-ever release of TTT, with astounding image clarity and sharp detail. You get both the original 136-minute English-language theatrical release with Japanese dialogue subtitled, and the extended 148-minute Japanese cinema release including a couple of extra scenes: a poignant scene of Yamamoto being ushered in to the Emperor’s presence to discuss the planned attack, and a comedy vignette of two galley cooks on one of the Japanese carriers where the elder one tries to explain to the younger stooge-character how their crossing the international dateline means they are now living through yesterday again.The Blu-Ray also includes an impressive menu of extras. The most interesting is a 90-minute documentary backstory of the film, its ruinous budget and the problems between Fox and the ageing, paranoid Kurosawa (“in three weeks, he had filmed only eight minutes of unusable material”), how the special effects were done and critical reception of the film on its 1970 release. Additionally, there’s newsreel from 1941 and the documentary film ‘A Day of Infamy’. I also have the previous 136-minute DVD release in my collection, but the Blu-Ray beats it hands down for sharp image quality and as an overall viewing experience. Recommended unconditionally to anyone interested in the origins of America's entry into WW2, to action-movie fans and cinema buffs everywhere.

Balanced as the film was made by both Japanese and American film makers. Plenty of action too! Brilliant!