Taiheiyô kiseki no sakusen: Kisuka

I found this rather rare film recently on the Internet, and even managed to find it with English sub-titles. If you love a good nail-biter, check out "Retreat from Kiska" (US title.) This is the (mostly) true story of an effort in 1943 to rescue a Japanese garrison from the Aleutian island of Kiska following the failure of that campaign.

To start with, the cast is excellent, led by the legendary Toshiro Mifune (Shogun) and So Yamamura. It also represented a legitimate effort by Toho Studios to create a positive Japanese film about World War II without glorifying Japan's conquests, a sensitive topic even 20 years after the war ended. Even realizing that these are the enemy, facing US GI's and Canadians, it is hard not to root for the desperate group of men seeking escape from certain doom. This film is a cross between "Dunkirk" and "The Guns of Navarone."

For 1965 the production values are not bad. Of course the ships are models, but much better than Godzilla. The landscape is impressively real and wintry and the costuming (the garrison were not Army but members of the Special Naval Landing Force, Japan's marines) is highly accurate. The film succeeds in building tension and telling a good story. Some of the characters, especially the fleet commander and some of the stranded troops are actually well-developed. There is even a little humor regarding two dogs adopted by the garrison who were an actual part of the historical story.

There were some negatives. Perhaps some things were lost in translation, but a lot of the dialogue is incredibly stiff and cliche. Junior officers and soldiers bow and scrape in almost school-boy fashion, although there is a great scene with the fleet's weather officer that comes across as very genuine. Also, while attempting to avoid glorifying Japan's wartime military, the film does tend towards jingoism, emphasizing virtues like absolute loyalty, self-sacrifice, and love of homeland (although the Emperor is conspicuously not mentioned, which is clearly a post-war edit.) Nonetheless, it makes a great tale of derring-do, bolstered by its roots in actual history. It even makes one cringe at the approach of those American B-25 bombers as you forget they are the good guys trying to liberate American soil.

If you love a good war movie and can find this, it is well worth your time to check out.

Narrated in a semi-documentary fashion, this film details the difficult decisions made by the Japanese Navy to extract over 5,000 soldiers entrenched on the small Aleutian Island of Kiska prior to an overwhelming American invasion to retake it. That being said, the main problem facing the Japanese military is the fact that the Americans have complete air superiority and also have a sizeable naval presence which can be brought to bear within only a few hours' notice. In that regard, not only is it difficult to resupply these Japanese troops but time also becomes a factor since both food and ammunition are beginning to run out. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a pretty good World War II film which manages to capture another side of the Pacific War not generally seen by those of us in the West. I would also like to add that being unfamiliar with this specific battle it was difficult for me to tell whether any of it was embellished or manufactured. It did, however, maintain a good amount of suspense from start to finish and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Above average.