Simply A Masterpiece

Purely Joyful Movie!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This film is almost camp in its sophomoric racism. As a member of a minority that has also experienced this kind of dehumanization at a time when this was not at all uncommon I think that this movie has value as an example of what generations ..even my own daughter will never believe unless they see it. I think we all need these movies in their uncut form as a reminder (embarrassing though it is to the filmmakers) of how dumb we can get with these kinds of issues. I speak as a minority and as a fellow brother to all of you reading this. This is not shocking and the Japanese I am sure have the self confidence (as does my minority group) to point at this as a laughable example of white racism in its most childish form. It does not inspire hate for the whites who made it ...it inspires incredulity and empathy in me personally because it is truly embarrassing. I am sure it is the whites who would most like to eradicate this film and forget they (or the few who believed this) ever exhibited this kind of insipid point of view. It was an emotional time. Sometimes emotions make us say and think stupid things. This movie is an example.

I actually like seeing this movie BECAUSE it's so bad. I mean REAL bad! The movie was made just before the end of the war. The problem is, when release time came, the Japanese had the unmitigated nerve to surrender BEFORE the movie could be released. The producers scrambled and decided to change the movie to make it more timely. Gone was the original plot--now the espionage film was about an American soldier rescuing an atomic scientist from a Japanese prison camp! To do this, our hero is given extensive plastic surgery so he looks Japanese. Unfortunately, he ended up looking about as Japanese as Orson Welles, but this didn't seem to matter to the producers. Then, he infiltrated the camp only to find not only the scientist but the hero's fiancée!!! Later, he escaped with them both but just as they are about to enter the sub for safety, the Japs arrive!! The hero tells them to go--he will stay and cover their escape by sacrificing his life. Why did he do this? Well, according to him it was BETTER to die than be stuck with THIS face for the rest of his life--though I wondered WHY he didn't just get plastic surgery AGAIN?! The dummy should have thought of this! In addition to the rather insulting ending, the Japanese soldiers in the camp were usually portrayed as sex-crazed idiots! The only one who seemed civilized was the commandant, who initially treated the female lead with respect. Only later did you find out it was all an act!!! He was not about to take NO for an answer!!!! He told her that it had been an act and down deep ALL Japanese men are alike! So, this is a 100% non-politically correct and stupid film. Considering world events, it is understandable why the Japanese were portrayed in such a silly fashion--though this one goes beyond any other film of the era. A definite curiosity!!

Interesting plot, not overloaded with the usual World War 2 Era derogatory remarks about the Japanese-but not politically correct by today's standards. It is a late WW2 film piece concerning an American soldier who undergoes plastic surgery to allow himself to look Japanese and infiltrate a prison camp in order to gain information from an American prisoner being held there. Tom Neal does a good job with the role. Seeing Keye Luke in a non Charlie Chan or Dr. Kildare series was a plus for the film.

I agree that a movie -- or almost any other cultural artifact -- should be judged on the basis of the times and circumstances of its production. It's unfair to judge what people have done in the past through the prism of our own prevailing prejudices. Barbara Field, the African-American historian, was critical of Lincoln's deciding to wait until after Antietam to announce the emancipation of slaves -- this in Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War. That sort of statement has always irritated me, brimming over with self righteousness. (I wonder how historians will judge us a hundred years from now. I hope they're kinder to us.) So I am willing to take the temporal context into account. The simple fact is that a movie that humanized the enemy would not have been made in 1945 -- or for years afterward for that matter. Steinbeck's script for "The Moon is Down" was criticized for turning a German soldier into something resembling a human being. And in "The Desert Fox" (ca. 1950) James Mason's touching performance as Erwin Rommel was blasted. In the later "The Desert Rats," playing Rommel again, Mason was forced to resort to the usual stereotype. How would you feel if you now saw a movie that included a partly sympathetic portrayal of a member of Al Qeda? Given all that, this movie is pretty crummy. The crumminess is not only in the script, although it's certainly there too, but especially in the performances, and most notably in Tom Neal's. He was out of his depth, although the part was simple enough. (He was IN his depth in "Detour".) He doesn't even get the Japanese bow right. The bow is face down, smart and snappy, in real military life. Neal bows slowly from the hips down, keeping his face up all the time, as if involved in some particularly outre tai ji exercise. The make up job is astonishing. And his speech! He evidently has a set of false teeth (all Japs are buck-toothed) which make him sound as if he's speaking through a mouth full of tooth paste. On top of that he struggles desperately to impose a "Japanese" accent which consists mostly of substituting [r] for [l] and vice versa. Let's just say he speaks his lines memorably. Sure it's a racist movie, but it WAS wartime, and it's understandable -- a lot more understandable than rounding up Japanese-American families and shuffling them off to internment camps. THAT manifestation of racism is less justifiable. But the movie is pretty bad nonetheless, unless you can enjoy it as pozlost.