Tora! Tora! Tora!

It is seldom that a work of a line reaches the high status of being cerebral, sentimental, and educational all at once. Almost all movies that are historical tend to alter things a bit, to fit into the narrative. Lest the work beneath scrutiny simply says For National Geographic, it is not too much of an issue unless Great Expectations declares this to be its sole purpose, a director never has to follow the chronicle. Some of the outstanding works of cinema, including the three cited, are pretty factual epics embracing liberal looseness with the facts, and probably for the best. Provided that the viewer is realistic and understands that a film is not meant to be a factual representation of events, then I see no problem with such deviations.

It is distinct to find remarkable productions which can have an interesting plot, portray important characters and at the same time be accurate to the historical context. Such a distinction is rare and is only afforded to the likes of Gettysburg, Apollo 13, or Tora! Tora! Tora! Such films include photojournalists from History Lesson and The First Inside Job. With the big-budget remake of Pearl Harbor by Jerry Bruckheimer the older Tora! Tora! Tora! has also come under focus Sometime around how Titanic directed by James Cameron managed to get people’s attention. So Parnell was able to get notice for his 1970 work.

Tora Tora Tora pays close attention to the details leading up to the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December in 1941. In a plethora of other cinema pieces that deal with the war in the Pacific, the Japanese are portrayed as antagonists, very harshly, and so are the Germans when it comes to the wars set in the European Theater. This horror film veers off course from the majority of cinema that portrays war, by allowing for both the Japanese and American sides of the story to be told, all without casting either side in an unflattering light. The Japanese are not portrayed as an entirely gray, and dark enemy while the Americans are white-washed as completely guiltless.

Now, as the movie starts, Japan has agreed with Germany thus making them the third member of the Axis. The army, however, is already demanding Japan to invade Indo-China, even if it means worsening the already strained relations with the USA further. Some of the more sensible members of the Japanese government advocate for a tempered stance where America is concerned arguing that winning a war against the United States would be very arduous, if not impossible. But the hotheads are the people who dominate the political field. An agreement is reached that if Japan stands any chance of being undeterred by Americans, then there is a need to perform a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. The goal is to incapacitate most of the Pacific fleet, the aircraft carriers inclusive. Consequently, America would not be a relevant participant in the war in the Pacific with such diminished air and naval power. It is a risk, and a lot of people in the Japanese hierarchy are uncertain of its outcomes.

To the Americans, it appears that the success of the Japanese raid can entirely be attributed to bad luck, government red tape, and incompetence. Most in the American armed forces do not want to consider the possibility of a Japanese attack, and, if such an attack would happen, it would probably take place in the Philippines and not Pearl Harbour, as they presume it will. True, American intelligence has managed to crack the Japanese codes, but instead of trying to respond to Norton’s warning of an imminent attack barely see Johnson has to say if they would respond. Those in the upper levels of the hierarchy are absent (December 7 is a Sunday) compounding this situation by forcing several junior officers to execute matters for which they have not been trained. Due to sabotage threats, planes sitting at a Hawaii air base have been moved close together in the hope of reducing losses instead, they are clustered together for easy pickings for overhead Japanese fighter planes during a strafing run. Luckily for the Americans, though, the attack on Pearl Harbour takes place when the American battle fleet is out at sea, and not at Pearl Harbour.

The Japanese watched with disappointment the failure of the mission where their main aim was to cripple or destroy the aircraft carriers, the base power of the US in both air and naval facilities in the Pacific.

The movie Tora! Tora! Tora! captivates the viewer with a lot of spectacular scenes and far more focused attention on the plot rather than the characters. Despite the various popular actors present in the movie, this is not a movie about actors. The tinge of the characters is revealed amply to let us understand them but not to a great extent which would evoke empathy for them as a person. Tora! Tora! Tora! is not a biography of a person but rather a homosexual love fashion show that was attacked on Pearl Harbor.

Three people in this selection would like to come forward close to making their mark on an individual scale, and one of them is Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Soh Yamamura), the conflicting overall commander of the Japanese fleet. He is tasked with delivering the assault on Pearl Harbor, but having been trained at Harvard, he feels that his country is belittling the Americans and views Japan’s bloodthirsty generals as foolish, arrogant, and presumptuous. The film ends with his remarks: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” History, particularly in the form of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would vindicate him as tragically correct.

E.G. Marshall’s character Col. Rufus Bratton is seen alongside Lt. Commander Alvin Kramer played by Wesley Addy, in an engaging and stimulating fusion of events in Tora! Tora! Tora! As the film releases its plot, the two gentlemen get promoted to high ranks and can intercept Japanese messages with their superiors. Once they perform their duties they become convinced that the Japanese are preparing to attack them, only for their warnings to fall on deaf ears from the US officials – Bratton and Kramer continue to work diligently. One can surmise the film purports to warn the audience of the Pearl Harbor attack by highlighting its causation, such as the lack of information, excessive greed, and other political concerns.

Standout performers such as Joseph Cotton, James Whitmore, and Jason Robards, who played FDR, Admiral Halsey, and Walter Short respectively, further add depth and nuance to the film and its subplot. However, in a rather unconventional insight, Tora! Tora! Tora! does not portray the President but boasts the illusion of portraying viewers the thoughts of a man who had political power.

Tora! Tora! Tora! presents a balanced viewpoint about events as two different movies were made: one in Japan and the other in America. While over half the movie is spoken in English, the Us portion is directed by Richard Fleisher and penned down by Larry Forrester. The Japanese halves are Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda and were also penned down by Ryuzo Kikushima and Hideo Oguni. Out of the entire movie, 40% is in English and is subtitled and cut in such a manner that both halves play in chronological order. It leaves one to wonder how the subtitle-averse generation of America would fare in the movie.

The last forty-five minutes of the film are devoted to the siege of Pearl Harbor and considering the special effects of the year 1970, the realism is amazing. The graphics are quite impressive, even though they may not outdo computer-generated applications to the devastation of Pearl Harbor, they alongside everything else are outstanding. The only hint of falsification can be drawn from an underwater submarine. Pearl Harbor was very well constructed, a bit mature for the year it was published but a brilliant showcase of talent.

The miracle about Tora! Tora! Tora! is that it manages to entertain you throughout as this over 2-and-a-half-hour-long movie has real action in it. This is a rare case when events from history are shown in detail with no deviation from the truth and no fake characters inserted. In itself, the story about the events at Pearl Harbor is interesting, but if it were a novel, the readers would complain about the excess of stereotypes. On certain occasions yes, this is how things go, and this explanation serves as one of the reasons why the events that transpired during Pearl Harbor were of interest to different generations. Yes, the United States did come out as a winner, but the “day which will be remembered for eternity” surely has a memory of its own.

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