**Mild Spoilers** Surprisingly mild-in the propaganda department-motion picture for an American made war movie at the very hight, with the Axis winning at the time it was made, of WWII.
The movie "Behind the Rising Sun" does show the Japanese as villains but only the most nationalist and fanatical as well as racist, towards the white or Caucasian race, among them. The Japanese people for the most part are shown being brutalized and exploited by Japan's Fascist military junta, headed by Gen. Tojo, as much as the Chinese people-who are under Japan's thumb-shown in the film. The film incredibly also shows that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, descendant of the Sun God, as an innocent stooge being manipulate by Tojo's Military Junta and in no way involved in the crimes that he was at the time, in both US newspapers and heavily propagandized war films, accused of committing. This is exactly what happened two years later in the United State, under the urging of Gen MacArthur, and its allies refusing to indite Hirohito for war crimes! Which turned out to be one of the most brilliant decisions that Gen MacArthur ever made in peace as well as wartime!
In "Behind the Rising Sun" we see the lives of father and son Reo & Toro Seki, J. Carrol Nash and Tom Neal, change directions because of the upheaval in their native Japan. Toro who was educated in America is anything like his father Reo in respecting or upholding Japanese tradition. Reo at first is as fanatical a Japanese nationalist as you can get but it's his son who in the end, after being brainwashed by the Japanese military, turns the corner and outdoes even his, who by then finally saw the light, gong-ho and kamikaze like pop! In fact as the movie starts we already see that Toro made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and wait to see, by watching the film, what exactly lead him to do it!
Sent to fight in China as an officer in the Japaneses Army's Communication & Engineer Corps Toro became insensitive towards the horrors that his fellow Japanese soldiers inflicted on the helpless Chinese population. Back in Tokyo Toro's father Reo soon realized that his beloved country Japan was descending into barbarism, in its plans to conquer the entire world, and wanted no part of it. I wondered watching the movie if those behind it were somehow trying to put a wedge between Japan and its ally in WWII Nazi Germany! In its hinting that Germany being as white and Caucasian as any nation on earth would be on Japan's hit-list after it, together Germany & Italy, won the war!
It becomes very apparent to Reo that his son Toro had gone off the deep end when he came back home on leave from China and even worse he, in his pushing Japanese nationalism on Toro, together with him being indoctrinated by the Japaneses military was a major cause of it! With his son now gone forever, killed during the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo, Reo could no longer face what he did and did the only thing left for him to do by doing-via Hiri Kiri- himself in Japanese style.
Together with the very deep and thought-provoking political menu in the movie we also have Toro's love interest the exotically beautiful Margo as Tama Shimamuka as well as a secondary love affair with American businessman Clancy O'Hara, Donald Douglas, and American newspaper woman Sara Braden, Gloria Holden, which was more or less padding or fillers, to stretch the film to it's eventual 88 minutes, then anything else.
P.S By far the best part of the movie had nothing at all to do with the war but a knock down drag out "Battle of the Century" between American prizefighter Lefty O'Doyle, Robert Ryan, and Japanese martial arts expert, even though he's about as Japanese as I'm inner Mongolian, Mike Mazurki. That incredible slug fest between the two giants of pugilism was more then worth the price of admission!
The movie "Behind the Rising Sun" does show the Japanese as villains but only the most nationalist and fanatical as well as racist, towards the white or Caucasian race, among them. The Japanese people for the most part are shown being brutalized and exploited by Japan's Fascist military junta, headed by Gen. Tojo, as much as the Chinese people-who are under Japan's thumb-shown in the film. The film incredibly also shows that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, descendant of the Sun God, as an innocent stooge being manipulate by Tojo's Military Junta and in no way involved in the crimes that he was at the time, in both US newspapers and heavily propagandized war films, accused of committing. This is exactly what happened two years later in the United State, under the urging of Gen MacArthur, and its allies refusing to indite Hirohito for war crimes! Which turned out to be one of the most brilliant decisions that Gen MacArthur ever made in peace as well as wartime!
In "Behind the Rising Sun" we see the lives of father and son Reo & Toro Seki, J. Carrol Nash and Tom Neal, change directions because of the upheaval in their native Japan. Toro who was educated in America is anything like his father Reo in respecting or upholding Japanese tradition. Reo at first is as fanatical a Japanese nationalist as you can get but it's his son who in the end, after being brainwashed by the Japanese military, turns the corner and outdoes even his, who by then finally saw the light, gong-ho and kamikaze like pop! In fact as the movie starts we already see that Toro made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and wait to see, by watching the film, what exactly lead him to do it!
Sent to fight in China as an officer in the Japaneses Army's Communication & Engineer Corps Toro became insensitive towards the horrors that his fellow Japanese soldiers inflicted on the helpless Chinese population. Back in Tokyo Toro's father Reo soon realized that his beloved country Japan was descending into barbarism, in its plans to conquer the entire world, and wanted no part of it. I wondered watching the movie if those behind it were somehow trying to put a wedge between Japan and its ally in WWII Nazi Germany! In its hinting that Germany being as white and Caucasian as any nation on earth would be on Japan's hit-list after it, together Germany & Italy, won the war!
It becomes very apparent to Reo that his son Toro had gone off the deep end when he came back home on leave from China and even worse he, in his pushing Japanese nationalism on Toro, together with him being indoctrinated by the Japaneses military was a major cause of it! With his son now gone forever, killed during the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo, Reo could no longer face what he did and did the only thing left for him to do by doing-via Hiri Kiri- himself in Japanese style.
Together with the very deep and thought-provoking political menu in the movie we also have Toro's love interest the exotically beautiful Margo as Tama Shimamuka as well as a secondary love affair with American businessman Clancy O'Hara, Donald Douglas, and American newspaper woman Sara Braden, Gloria Holden, which was more or less padding or fillers, to stretch the film to it's eventual 88 minutes, then anything else.
P.S By far the best part of the movie had nothing at all to do with the war but a knock down drag out "Battle of the Century" between American prizefighter Lefty O'Doyle, Robert Ryan, and Japanese martial arts expert, even though he's about as Japanese as I'm inner Mongolian, Mike Mazurki. That incredible slug fest between the two giants of pugilism was more then worth the price of admission!