As an WWII buff, I was intrigued when I saw this film pop up on my Netflix recommence list. Alas, I ought to have taken the time to beforehand to look up the director. Alesandr Sokurov made the dreadful "Russian Ark". This film, while not nearly as bad as "Ark" or Malick's horrendous "Thin Red Line", suffers from a limp, aimless, script that is augmented by equally limp, wooden acting.
The Americans in this film are a collection of stereotypes posing as characters. Richard Dawson in particular is awful. He appears to suffer from a case of macrocephaly which is seriously distracting. His massive head--quite unlike what MacArthur had-- makes him look like a mad scientist in an army uniform. His acting, the apposite of Tommy Lee Jones portrayal of MacArthur in "Emperor", is lifeless and quite unlike Douglas MacArthur.
Issei does a solid enough job of portraying the Emperor. Who can pretend to accurately a man who is seen as a God and is kept largely out of the public eye? Unlike MacArthur, the actor here had little to go on in a character study.In view of this any actor who attempts to portray such a mysterious man has to be given a benefit of the doubt. That said, this is no equal to Ganz's brilliant portrayal of Hitler. Ganz put on one of the great acting performances of all time--at least the equal of Daniel Day-Lewis' Lincoln.
I have one final critique and this goes for "Emperor" as well. For some reason when people make movies of the Pacific Theater they mention the A-bombs, but never the great many atrocities the Japanese committed in their 8 years of war. The Japanese were, in fact, the first country to employ WMD in WWII when they used bombs filled with bubonic plague on the Chinese. These weapons were developed by a special unit call Unit 731'. This unit committed horrors that matched those of Mengele and the Nazis. Then we have the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking, and the general brutal occupations of Asian countries. The Japanese did far more than bomb Pearl Harbor. Ask the Chinese, who lost some 15 million citizens to Japanese aggression. Aggression that actually stretches back to 1931.(Even though the Sino-Japanese War did not officially begin until July of 1937.) To not mention Japanese barbarism and aggression on such a large scale is to akin to omitting the Holocaust when discussing the Nazis.
The Americans in this film are a collection of stereotypes posing as characters. Richard Dawson in particular is awful. He appears to suffer from a case of macrocephaly which is seriously distracting. His massive head--quite unlike what MacArthur had-- makes him look like a mad scientist in an army uniform. His acting, the apposite of Tommy Lee Jones portrayal of MacArthur in "Emperor", is lifeless and quite unlike Douglas MacArthur.
Issei does a solid enough job of portraying the Emperor. Who can pretend to accurately a man who is seen as a God and is kept largely out of the public eye? Unlike MacArthur, the actor here had little to go on in a character study.In view of this any actor who attempts to portray such a mysterious man has to be given a benefit of the doubt. That said, this is no equal to Ganz's brilliant portrayal of Hitler. Ganz put on one of the great acting performances of all time--at least the equal of Daniel Day-Lewis' Lincoln.
I have one final critique and this goes for "Emperor" as well. For some reason when people make movies of the Pacific Theater they mention the A-bombs, but never the great many atrocities the Japanese committed in their 8 years of war. The Japanese were, in fact, the first country to employ WMD in WWII when they used bombs filled with bubonic plague on the Chinese. These weapons were developed by a special unit call Unit 731'. This unit committed horrors that matched those of Mengele and the Nazis. Then we have the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking, and the general brutal occupations of Asian countries. The Japanese did far more than bomb Pearl Harbor. Ask the Chinese, who lost some 15 million citizens to Japanese aggression. Aggression that actually stretches back to 1931.(Even though the Sino-Japanese War did not officially begin until July of 1937.) To not mention Japanese barbarism and aggression on such a large scale is to akin to omitting the Holocaust when discussing the Nazis.