You won't be disappointed!

So much average

Fresh and Exciting

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Tora!Tora!Tora! should be considered as the Holy Bible regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941.Its main asset is without a doubt its amazing historical accuracy and the very attention to detail. You can feel that a lot of research has been made to make this movie possible.After watching this movie, everybody will understand how we came to that tragedy in the first place. How our government was aware that something was up but was never able to guess the Japanese true intentions. How the Japanese high command prepared that attack while their diplomatic corps was stalling us in an endless and fruitless negotiation.I also love this movie for giving some justice to Kimmel and Short who were unfairly used as scapegoats after the attack and shamelessly sent to the shadows afterwards. In this movie, they are depicted as capable and caring commanders deliberately kept in the dark and left to themselves for making decisions based on incomplete information. It left us with the impression that they could have done something to stop the attack if they would have been accurately kept informed by their leadership.The other point I truly like is they are telling the story from both sides point of view. The Japanese part is as thorough and accurate as the American one. It depicts Yamamoto as a man not willing to go to war with America, a country he knows very well as he was a Harvard student back in the day, but pushed to it by the Army commanders who wanted to control all the Pacific without realizing that a war with the US would mean to defy an industrial great power who has the means to overpower each opponent who dare attacking us.8/10

It takes some courage to take an event that is such a wound to the psyche of the American people and give it an alternative perspective. This is not to accept the motivations of the Japanese Empire, but it gives a reasons for why Pearl Harbor happened. I'm hoping that contemporary society doesn't use the insipid movie "Pearl Harbor" as a benchmark for an understanding of this event. We all know that at some point, someone dropped the ball. It would have been surprising if someone had not. There were too many cooks and an arrogance that left the door open. Through some excellent research, the producers have allowed us inside the planning stages that led to the bombing. There was plenty of warning. There were just too many layers here. As this film goes along it accomplishes what every film aspires to. It makes us think we are watching actual historical figures in action, in a kind of documentary.

I've had this film on my radar for quite some time but just got around to watching it today. One of my hesitations which turned out to be completely unnecessary was a common complaint I have with war films - they often throw in some romantic element completely unnecessary for the historical record to receive it's proper treatment. Case in point, 2001's "Pearl Harbor" which also concerned itself with the Japanese attack that ignited our engagement in World War II. With "Tora! Tora! Tora!" I was impressed with the near documentary story telling style, offering an inside look at both the Japanese and American approaches to an impending conflict.I recently happened to catch the original full version of the 1943 documentary "December 7th", commissioned by President Franklin Roosevelt to help explain what happened before, during and after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A good deal of what's shown in that film provided key elements in the subject movie being discussed, with particular emphasis on the number of Japanese living on the Hawaiian Islands. One of the military leaders mentions it here, I think it was Lt. Colonel Bratton (E.G. Marshal) but if not, please excuse. The reason I bring it up is because the film incorporates quite clearly any number of Japanese characters in civilian roles, particularly in military offices as well as domestic help, including General Bratton's own houseboy. The fear of local Japanese sabotage was always quite clearly in mind by the powers that be.The movie offered a couple of surprises, the primary one being that no stock footage of the actual Pearl Harbor attack was used in the production. I thought that might have been an element. Another surprise was that even though the President was mentioned a number of times, there was no actor employed to portray Roosevelt. I thought that was kind of interesting, particularly since FDR almost immediately convened Congress to declare war at the time. But then again, the movie was depicting the day of and not the aftermath.As far as the actual battle scenes, the recreations for the film are simply staggering in an era before CGI and mesmerizing special effects. They aptly convey the horror of war and the chilling resolve of the Japanese kamikaze pilots to inflict a mortal blow to America. Though it wasn't specifically mentioned in the picture, the actual attack lasted just ten minutes shy of two hours, and delivered a devastating blow to America's naval capacity in the Pacific. What it led to was Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's (So Yamamura) prescient observation that the Japanese Empire had awakened a sleeping giant. The march of history was about to be changed for the next seventy years.

(44%) If you want a history lesson on the attack of Peal harbour then watch this movie as this whole film is made up almost entirely of bit-by-bit recreations of the events leading up to it without any sort of character development or indeed anything to get in the way of its lecture. There's a good two hours of this movie in which not a great deal happens besides the Japanese preparing for the attack and the Americans wondering if or when it could happen, it does and we get the films highlight in some much needed action and then it ends. It is decently made with a big budget behind it and the attack itself is well done but it all looks as if the makers got wrapped up in the facts and forgot about making an entertaining movie that people would actually enjoy to watch as well as learn something from.