Enemy Within

Totally fictionalized account of the Ni'ihau Incident.

As a World War II historian I've been hoping for years that someone would produce a film about the incident that was the main impetus for incarcerating Japanese Americans living on the West Coast in concentration camps (those living in Hawai'i were not incarcerated, except for a handful who were known to be enemy sympathizers). I didn't even know about this movie until more than three years after it was made; probably because it's garbage and no one wanted to advertise it. I'm not going to take the time to create spoilers and point out everything wrong about this production, but suffice it to say that it's just wrong.

The events in the movie are very slow, that I almost fell asleep. There are also many scenes in Japanese where you can't understand what's happening but you have to guess. And the end is not good. In short, the movie can be shortened to a half an hour instead wasting two hours on such slow movie.

This movie is no closer to being based on the Niihau Incident than a Chipotle fart is to telling the tale of Abraham Lincoln.

Don't be making genuine heroes weak by removing their ACTUAL ACTIONS AND MOTIVATIONS and make genuine REAL LIFE VILLAINS sympathetic by giving them fake stories.

An amazing story was RUINED AND WASTED with this film. The filmmakers should be ashamed!

But even as hawaiian this story was it was barely a mediocre one. if you expect war your lost, if you would like some harakiri then your in. you will also find a whole lot of village around the bonfire talking or walking and not much more than that. there are some fistfights between friends , and foes too. itll may have some appeal for the right wing japanese audiences, because it has some japanese imperialism in its hidden agenda.

the acting are at b and c level, the locations and settings are rather like ''your mama and my mama, sitting by the fire'', and feels like a bunch of locals in a theater company joining forces to tell their part of the islands war history.

the grumpy old man saw it and will attend the haugesund international film festival later today

The original events would have made a better story. The most unHawaiian movie about Hawaii. Everything was off. From houses to clothes. Hawaiians didn't hunt boar with long bows and who spears fish that way. What Nisei speaks with a Japanese accent. It would have helped if the film makers did a little research before the filmed.